


The Gyre

by Katzedecimal



Series: Apres La Mort [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Disturbing Themes, Drug Addiction, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Romantic Friendship, Suggestive Themes, Triggers, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-21
Updated: 2012-05-25
Packaged: 2017-11-04 01:12:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 30,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/388019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katzedecimal/pseuds/Katzedecimal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After falling to his death, the man who used to be Sherlock Holmes is on the hunt to unravel his killer's work.  Sequal (and slightly prequel) to <i>Burning Bridge.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Behind the 8-Ball

**Author's Note:**

> _Behind the 8-Ball_ is set slightly before _Burning Bridge_ , timewise.

His was a dark and stormy plight. He tapped his arm where the needle had gone in; almost ready. He tried not to think about what he had done, what he was doing. 

Tried not to think about the packet. 

Tried not to think about who he was doing it for. 

Ready. He picked up the needle and bent to his stitching. Good thing it was his non-dominant arm or this'd **really** look like hash. John had nice, tiny stitches that left barely any scar... _Stop thinking about that. Stop thinking about John. You're both better off alone._

_Yeah right,_ said the dark tiny voice that sneered from the cellar of his soul, _Which is why you picked up that packet. So much better off this way, oh yes._ He hated the tiny voice. It was always there, always peering over his shoulder and commenting. It used to sound like Mycroft; lately it'd taken to sounding like Moriarty. He didn't consider that an improvement. _So wild and free, with no liabilities. And aren't you ever so much happier now._

"Shut up," he muttered, and got on with his stitching.

He was called Linus Sigerson - at the moment, anyways. It was just one of many names he'd worn since he'd lost his life. It seemed so long ago. He'd expected time to dull the pain and had resigned himself to it. He'd put it all behind him - his work, his home, his companions, his music, his name, all of it. He'd locked it all up and turned his back on it all. Better this way, he'd told himself, Safer this way. Back to the way it was before. 

_Miserable_ , the tiny voice had taunted. So he'd shoved that into the closet as well only to find it had leaked out. He mopped it back in, along with his emotions, and tried to seal it all away. But behind the doors, it festered. 

He gritted his teeth as he stabbed the needle through a patch of flesh that hadn't been fully anesthetised. _John wouldn't let that happen. He'd've gotten it all._

"Shut up, I said."

And he'd been doing **just fine** ( _Yeah, right._ ) up until America, where his collegue's finesse with proxies had proven to be just too tempting. Why oh WHY had he checked his old email?? What on earth had he been expecting? What could he have hoped to _You were hoping to find exactly what you found - proof that he suspected. Proof that he was on to you._

"Still shouldn't have listened to them," he muttered, wincing as he drew the thread through. But he had, he'd listened to the songs and the doors had burst open and everything he'd shut away had come bursting back out in a festering, rotting mess. He'd listened to them over and over again and rocked and wept until he fell into an exhausted sleep. 

The dreams were worse than ever. 

Time and again, he'd asked himself why he was doing this, why he was chasing all over the world to ferret out Moriarty's network of criminals. After all, as the little voice loved to remind him, it wasn't as if there wouldn't be more to take their place. _And it's not as if it's even **fun.**_

"No," he sighed, "It's not."

Nobody looked at him. Nobody cared. In the quiet net cafe in the dead of night, nobody noticed anything that anybody did. One of the nighttime job hunters had been kind enough to bring him his field-surgery kit, then had immediately returned to his connection booth as if he hadn't seen a bruised man bleeding from a knife wound stagger in. Because he hadn't. Nobody saw the homeless, in Japan. 

He finished stitching the wound and went to take a careful shower before he would retire to his capsule bunk. The hitman had been skilled, a very challenging fighter, and he actually **had** been expecting the knife to be a tanto, but even so, intercepting it had been problematic because the damned thing was so sharp, he hadn't felt it cut. He'd managed to stop the bleeding long enough for him to frisk the body for the USB sticks and celphone the hitman had been carrying. He really wished he hadn't been carrying an 8-ball as well. 

He managed to text his Interpol contact before leaving the scene. He mentioned the USB sticks and information. He didn't mention the coke. Now he buried the packet at the bottom of his pack and tried to put it out of his mind. "Because if I lose at this, Moriarty wins," he whispered to himself as he rinsed his hair. The tiny voice chuckled, _Because John would be disappointed._

"Stop that."

_You picked it up because you can't keep going. It's too much for you. You like to pretend you don't care, why else were you so vicious? And you did all that work for nothing, you know she'll only be replaced._

"Just shut up."

_You need something to deal with the pain. It's not going away, you can't stop missing him. You need to deal with it somehow. Pretty soon, you're going to need a shot in the arm._

He dried himself off and put on one of the yukata supplied by the net cafe. He knew the little voice was right. He missed his life more than he'd ever thought possible. He missed his flatmate more than he'd ever thought he could miss anyone. He'd been _happy_ at his peak, feeling _happy_ alive, with his mind running at top performance. Never had life seemed _happier_ more interesting. _Shut up, yourself, you were **happy** , for the first time in your life._ And he hated Moriarty for taking all of it away. Now he hunted Moriarty's web, tearing down everything Moriarty had worked for. _Not that it'll make a difference. Besides, he's dead, how's he going to know?_

"Not relevant." He crawled carefully into his capsule and fell asleep.

* * * *

Eight days went by. Eight days of pursuing the leads his contacts had given him. Eight days of arguing with himself, eight days of trying not to think about the 8-ball in his pack, eight days of feeling the weight of it on his soul. Eight more days of missing John. He wasn't sure which was worse, withdrawal from cocaine or withdrawal from John. _John, definitely. Coke doesn't compare to John. That's why you haven't taken it yet. It's not the drug you **really** want, but you picked it up because it's all you can have._ He didn't answer; the tiny voice was right.

His phone chimed. _Call from Mycroft._ "Yeah thanks for that, couldn't tell by the tone. Wow, my backseat driver's turned into Captain Obvious." He thumbed the phone and put it to his ear, "Wh-*"

"It appears you were correct," said the plummy voice before he could get a word out. Only the plummy voice didn't sound as plummy as usual. It sounded tight and tired. _In pain._

"What happened to you?"

" **He** happened. Goaded me, pinned me down and held a gun to my head. The man is like a mongoose. I'm most disappointed in myself."

"Why's that?"

"He taunted me about Mummy and I fell for it." 

The rueful note in Mycroft's voice made him grin, " _Really,_ brother dear? Yo'-Mama?"

"I will allow you to tease me about it three times, no more."

"Noted. No permanent damage, I expect."

"Just a sprained shoulder, although by 'just', I mean 'my arm is numb and barely movable at the moment.'"

_That I wouldn't doubt. John would've judged the amount of force precisely._ "Ice it and it'll wear off. What did you tell him?"

"The combination, of course. He appears not only to have worked it out about you, but also about me, which is rather surprising."

"Not really," he said with a note of pride, "He's just slower at it, I've found, but he gets there eventually." He reached into his bag for his player. "When did this happen?"

"A bit less than ninety minutes ago. I booked off."

"And forty-five minutes ago, he uploaded a new song and it's relevant."

"Capital. Communications established, then?"

"Just uploaded my answer, we'll see. I think you'll find he'll book holiday time before tomorrow's out."

"Unfortunate but not unexpected. I did stress the danger still present to him. However, despite my misgivings, this may be for the best. This may give my sources time to deal with those interests who've been observing him."

"Who aren't you."

"Well, obviously."

"I'll be going back. The trail went cold." _Keep telling yourself that._

There was a rude snort at the other end of the call. _See? Even he thinks so._ _Shut up._ "So I understand. But even if it hadn't, you would shove it into a deep freeze. Safe travels."

He clicked the phone off and started shoving his few belongings into his pack. 

Brilliant, just brilliant. Well, this is wonderful. Everything I've done and given up to protect him and Mycroft only goes and tells him its dangerous. Why didn't you tell him it was covered in chocolate frosting and accompanied by a free chai latte? It would have the same effect. _On Mycroft._ Well yes that goes without saying. 

_Don't see why you're bitching,_ the tiny voice said smugly, _This is what you wanted, after all._

I wanted to protect him! 

_And he wants to protect you. Come now, you know what he's like,_ his inner Moriarty purred, _He hangs back and watches for a bit while he decides on a course of action. And then, he acts. He's never waited for a by- **your** -leave, has he. But every time he's acted, it's been well thought out. You'll just have to trust him._

I don't need the liability. 

_But you do need **him.**_

Look, I've already seen where that leads! I jumped off a bloody building, ferchrissakes! And now look at me - I'm homeless, nameless, I've lost everything, my violin, my skull, I can't even call my brother by his name - all because I broke my own rules. Mycroft was right - caring **isn't** an advantage.

Silence answered him. He picked up his pack and shouldered it then checked the listings for flights. Then he checked his MP3 player.

_Don't forget to pack your teddy bear._

Shut up.

_So why are you going, then? You told Mycroft straight away that you were going._

So I can tell him to sod off, of course! I'm too dangerous for him, that's been made **abundantly** plain. If he continues to associate with me, he's going to get himself killed. I tried to crush his fascination out of him but clearly I didn't do it hard enough.

_Mm, yes, 'fascination', I suppose that's one word for it._

Oh shut up.

_Ever thought to wonder **why** he's so 'fascinated?'_ and in his mind's eye he could imagine stupid Moriarty miming little air quotes, _You could always ask him, you know. There's a song for that, you know._

Will you just shut up?

_No._

Then at least stop sounding like Moriarty!

He uploaded a song then looked at flight prices. "I know I miss him," he whispered, barely audible even to himself, "I just don't know if I can go through it again. It was a mistake, such a huge mistake."

_Lots of fun, though,_ said the tiny voice of John.

......Could you go back to sounding like Moriarty? 

_Boy are you ever picky._


	2. A Shot In The Arm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jean-Paul Delacroix embarks on a mission to Iran, while Sherlock Holmes reflects on his deepening relationship with John Watson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this chapter takes place **after** _Burning Bridge_

It was a long and boring flight. The worst part about it was being unable to use any sort of wireless or cell connection, so he wasn't able to get fresh information when he needed it. The best part about it was shortly after lift-off, when he'd caught a glimpse of an ICE train heading eastbound out of Cologne. The time was about right - it was easy to imagine that John was aboard, on his way home. Alone. The thought was both comforting and anguishing and for a moment, he seriously considered sending a ticket to Iran to Baker Street - but no. There was simply too much to do, too much risk, and John had his own ideas to work with. 

_Told you you should have trusted him sooner,_ the little voice whispered smugly.

Nag nag nag. Just my luck I get the world's most psychotic backseat driver. 

_It's not psychotic. Everybody has a backseat driver._

Yes but **mine** has Dissociative Identities. 

He checked the time and sighed. Still hours yet to go to Tehran and he was too keyed up to sleep. That and his sleep schedule was screwed anyhow. That and he really didn't want the embarrassment of having a nightmare in public. Funny, he'd slept very well with John and both of them had had hardly any nightmares at all. 

John. That was the shot in the arm he'd **really** needed. He didn't need a 7% solution, he needed 100% John. And John had needed him just as badly. He'd been _shocked_ when he saw how John had deteriorated, far worse than Mycroft had intimated - and yet he'd come right back up within hours of finding each other, even started putting weight back on by the end of their time together. 

_"You haven't stopped smiling since I got here." "Neither have you."_

And hadn't they just drank each other in? Knowing it would be their last, maybe only, chance, for some time, hadn't they practically OD'd on each other? _Hope that's enough to sustain me for a while. Hope the songs can act as maintenance doses._ There was no answer from the little voice, probably couldn't find anything to snark about at that. It was true, though. They'd laid everything, absolutely everything, out on the table and John.....

John said he still wanted him back. Danger, difficulties, and everything that made people call him a freak. Everything that made him an idiot. Everything that made him brilliant. John wanted it all back. He glanced at the ring John had given him, to keep him safe in the conservative countries.

_If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it, if you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it,_ his mental Moriarty sang. He bit his lip hard to keep from laughing.

When the plane landed, he grabbed his pack and disembarked, intending just to hail a cab and find a place to stay. So he was quite surprised to see a man holding a sign reading "J-P. Delacroix." Huh? He frowned and the man saw it and smiled, "Monsieur Delacroix?"

"I'm Jean-Paul Delacroix, yes," he said with a flawless French accent.

"I am Yousef Mokri, very pleased to be your host, M. Delacroix. I believe you are acquainted with the aunt of my second cousin's wife. Mrs. Jones will be very pleased to hear that you have arrived safely."

Jean-Paul twitched an eyebrow, intrigued despite his caution. _Military bearing, a man on a mission, wants to tell me more but not in public. Could be useful._ "Your offer is welcome, Mr. Mokri. I look forward to it." He let the man lead him through the airport, noticing how he neatly dodged the worst of the security types and silver-tongued the less-attentive ones. Finally they were out to the car and into the horrendous traffic. 

"Not here," Mokri said, conversationally, "How was your flight?"

"Long and boring, most flights tend to be," Jean-Paul replied. They made idle chit-chat about the flight, the weather, how lovely France is this time of year - boring small-talk until they pulled up at the Mokri home. He was introduced to Yousef's wife Yasmine and his brother Mustafa, and treated to a dish piled high with polo and kebabs. _Standard decorations, nothing personalized - a temporary furnished accomodation, used by many. House still smells stale, haven't been here very long. Just assigned, then. Names are as ordinary as John, Mary and Peter Johnson, probably aliases. No intimacy between husband and wife, possibly a cover story, then._

Yousef wiped his mouth and smiled, suddenly all business, "Ears are listening everywhere in Iran. Wise of you to choose a French identity in these times."

Jean-Paul smirked slightly, "After the closure of the embassies, Iran hasn't got many friends left among the European Union. You're from England though, I note?"

"Our families emigrated when we were young but we still hold dual citizenship. Very useful. I am a major with a special unit, on loan to Interpol. My second cousin's wife's aunt requested I assist you, Agent Delacroix."

"Very kind of her. We've never actually met, but I understand she knew my best friend."

"Any friend of Mrs. Jones," Yousef smiled, "Agent Delacroix.."

"Jean-Paul, please."

"Jean-Paul. You are surely very tired after your flight, but I am told you don't like to wait. Will you be wanting to rest up some more, perhaps sleep? Or would you prefer to see what our sources have gathered?"

"Your informant is correct, I'd rather get to work," Jean-Paul smiled slightly. 

* * * *

When he finally did get to bed, it was mainly out of insistance on the part of his hosts. Although his body was tired, his mind was still whirling, ticking over all of the details and information about the latest pursuit. The region with the most activity was currently dangerous even to native Iranians, and the increased tensions with the West had made it extremely difficult for white foreigners. There was a lot to consider, a lot of careful planning to be done. 

And he couldn't concentrate on any of it because his mind kept turning back to the ever-fascinating John Watson. 

He truly was amazing. The unassuming little man with the permanently befuddled expression was just a bundle of contradictions. Right from the second glance, when he'd offered his cell phone to a man he'd just met, without even asking to whom he was texting, he'd held Sherlock's interest. He'd trusted Sherlock from the start and still trusted him. In Oslo, Sherlock had been expecting anger, recriminations, a punch to the face at the very least... Instead, he got understanding and forgiveness. Always the unexpected with John, he even baffled Mycroft, and both of them - even though they knew better - kept underestimating the man. He truly was wonderful, simply the most fun person Sherlock had ever met. _Did I ever remember to thank Mike for introducing us? ...don't think I did. Hm. Well, too late now, I suppose._

He rolled over with an exasperated sigh then reached for his mp3 player. He chuckled at the new song that had been uploaded - _Muskrat Love_ , by the Carpenters - and shook his head. _Really John, what is it with you and aquatic mammals?_ Then he saw that a jpeg had been added as well, renamed as 'I'm going to get shot for this.' Well who could resist a title like that? - he opened it to find, as he'd expected, Harry Watson's compilation of images of otters who looked like Sherlock Holmes. 

When he finally stopped giggling, he dug out his laptop and spent a quarter hour surfing for a suitable image and captioning it, then uploaded it titled 'You otter be ashamed.' He put the laptop down and crawled back to bed, got up again and dug around in his pack until he found his teddy bear. He'd bought it in a moment of weakness, because it was wearing a little t-shirt saying "John." The real John hadn't been offended, any more than he was offended by the otters. He curled up around it and noticed something else - the real John had daubed some of his aftershave onto the t-shirt, by the smell of it. _Almost like cuddling the real thing. Only furrier. And kind of plasticky. And a lot smaller. Actually not even remotely like cuddling the real thing, the real thing snores and is a living furnace._

That was another surprise. There hadn't been a choice about sharing the lilo, the flat in Oslo was too small to fit another one, so he'd just resigned himself. He hadn't expected it to work. He hadn't expected their bodies to fit just so, so it didn't get awkward or jabby. It hadn't been pleasant with anyone other than John. 

_That's not all that was pleasant,_ the tiny voice purred. Ah. Heh. Well. ...Mixed feelings about that. He sighed, inhaling the woodsy aroma clinging to the bear. His libido had never been terribly active even in his teens. Whereas most young men seemed to have raging fires in their bellies, he'd had... some smouldering embers, at the most. It was there, and could be fanned to life if he willed it, but he seldom saw much point in going to the trouble. He'd been mildly interested in the woman, until she made a collossal mistake. She had used an approach that was apparently effective on most of her clients, but had put him right off. _Really now, 'I would have you right here until you begged twice'? Really?_ the tiny voice of Moriarty sneered and he didn't disagree with it. It had only shown him how little she understood him after all - she thought that **he** would fall for an approach like that? Him? Who had **Mycroft** as his older brother, the control freak's control freak, constantly bending his arm up behind his back?  And honestly, his lack of libido was a blessing when faced with a big brother who took such an Orwellian approach to guardianship. Two words, really, Ceiling Mycroft. He'd been **so** disappointed in her. She'd tried to turn him on but in that instant, with that one misunderstanding, she'd turned him right off. And so his libido had continued to sleep, dark coals faintly glowing at the edges, giving off little warmth, until John...

_"Want to try an experiment?"_

...... had thrown petrol on them and they'd exploded into life in a fireball of desire that'd taken them both by surprise. To his own shock, he'd practically glomped the man! And it was different, he'd **wanted** it to be different, because everything else had been so different with John Watson. 

But it wasn't different enough. That had been a crushing disappointment. A caress still felt like stroking a sunburn, the ticklish spots still cramped and hurt, certain other touches still felt distressingly irritating, and it still took him a tediously long time to reach orgasm - although it had certainly been a better orgasm than anybody else had managed to give him. John had been **much** nicer to kiss, though. And then, when John had stroked him with a firmer touch, that had felt better. _Further experimentation is required,_ he thought, and shivered. Well... at least he'd enjoyed **some** of it. 

_Apparently,_ his inner Moriarty snickered snidely. Sigh. _Yes, going to have to deal with **that** first, not an issue that comes up very often, pardon the pun._ He sighed and inhaled the teddy bear's scent again and let the vivid memories enfold him. It still took a boringly, irritatingly long time but he found it was enough to knock his brain offline enough to get some sleep. He dreamed of 221b and the smells of bacon, woodsy aftershave and the faint lanolin of a wooly jumper, and John holding his nicotine patches hostage until he begged for them. Twice. 

* * * * 

"Font of All Knowledge, speak and be heard!"

He couldn't help but grin. The cheery voice always made him smile and the expressions on Yousef's and Mustafa's faces were just added icing. "Have you reconsidered my offer?" he said in a teasing voice.

"Hmmmmmm, I dunno, darling, it's not quite enough."

"Only there's the c flat, the landlady's always having turnover, it's the heat or rather the lack thereof. It'd be a perfect nest for your hardware."

"Oooooo, you tempting devil." They laughed. "What mischief can we get into together today?" 

"I'm so glad you asked," he chuckled, "My dear, I'm in Iran with a couple of special agents and they've brought a lot of new data to share. will you help us crunch it?"

"On one condition." 

"Name your price."

"Only if you read me the phone book so I can hear some more of that lovely voice of yours," the chirpy voice purred.

He laughed, "I can always count on you for a challenge."

"That's why you love me."

"Indeed I do. Uploading now."

Yousef was giving him an expression that John had called 'the hairy eyeball.' "And who is that?"

"Only one of the most brilliant people in the world," Jean-Paul chuckled, "She's one of my American contacts, a brilliant hacker and one of the most marvellous information hunters I've ever had the pleasure of dealing with. She's attached to several departments of the FBI and occasionally loaned out to the CIA and Interpol as well. We've a running joke with her people that I'm going to woo her away and steal her back to England."

"You think she'd never go?"

"No," Jean-Paul scoffed, "She's very effective right where she is and highly valued by the teams she works with. It's a joke, she's a joy to work with and I'd love to work with her on a regular basis."

"You sound very taken with her."

Jean-Paul shook his head, "She is a genius, as are the people she works with. It was she who identified the three hundred aliases of Morris James. 'Moriarty' is a portmandeau of the James brothers' names, 'Morry' and 'Arty'; their cryptographer worked out a number of similar constructions, she fed them into her computers and found a match. Then - and this is the brilliant part - she ran the image through facial recognition software and assembled a portfolio of possible variations **and I didn't even have to ask her!** She came up with that on her own. Then she searched for those variations and presto, three hundred known identities in under six hours. Just astonishing, simply brilliant. If I had more people like her and the people she works with in my life, I dare say things would be very different." _I wouldn't be homeless or nameless, for one._ _Wouldn't be such an arse._ He didn't bother arguing the little voice on that one - it was true. 

"Still sounds like a good match."

He shook his head again, "I've already met mine." 

His phone chimed. "Got it!" the cheery voice chirped, "We'll get to work on it and I'll let you know when we come up with something."

"Wonderful. I look forward to it." 

* * * *

In the weeks that followed, they'd broken up ten cells, disrupting supply chains and hubs for a number of illicit industries. Temporarily. _That's the problem with Interpol,_ he sighed to himself as he iced another bruise, _It relies on the local jurisdictions to make the arrests and if they're feeling disinclined, all the work will be worthless._ Still, it was worth it to shake up another section of Moriarty's web, even if he couldn't dismantle it permanently. 

Now he bent heads with the Mokris over their laptop. His American contacts had come through and their data analysis confirmed several leads into Tibet and offered several others of interest. As payment, Yasmine had translated several pieces of classical Persian poetry for him to read, much to his chirpy contact's delight.

"The problem is, Tibet isn't easy to move around in right now, either," he sighed over his steepled fingers, exasperated, "About the only way in is with an organized tourism group." Yousef, Yasmine and Mustafa all looked at each other and grinned. "...What?"

"As you know, Jean-Paul, through our cousin's wife, we are part of a very large family," Mustafa explained, "And all are fond of travelling. I'm certain there will be many eager to visit such a storied land as Tibet. The tedious part will be acquiring official papers."

"Ah," he grinned, "I know someone who can help with that."


	3. Flight Without Wings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John puts the next part of his plan to work. Colin MacIntyre goes on a family tour of Tibet. Sherlock ties another of Moriarty's loose ends, but finds it tangled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is some possible nose-cola in here, along with some unpleasant themes. It's true about _Staying Alive_ :)

It was a dark and stormy night. John propped the umbrella open in the foyer to dry off and offered its owner a cup of hot sweet tea. "Any progress?"

"Unfortunately, Dr. Watson, there are some miracles even I am unable to pull out of my hat," Mycroft replied, "And one of them is speeding up travel visas with the Chinese government. The current political climate surrounding the matter of Tibet has become very difficult."

John nodded thoughtfully as he sat down, "Which is probably why Moriarty's contacts have holed up there."

Mycroft lifted a curious eyebrow, "You believe Moriarty had work in China?"

"Pretty good idea," John nodded, "Thinking it was the Black Lotus clan. After that dust-up with them, we did some checking around and found they hadn't been active in England until relatively recently and the way they got in was clever, very clever. Moriarty clever."

"Interesting. Very well, I shall look into it."

"If I've thought of it, I'm pretty sure he has, but I sent him a hint anyways. If nothing else, he'll get a kick out of it."

"Indeed," Mycroft agreed, taking another sip of his tea. He wasn't sure just when John had figured out how he liked it, but the small gesture was appreciated. Not many people got Mycroft, either. 

"I've spoken with my contact," John said next, "She'll be in touch in the next couple of days, not sure what name she'll be using, but you'll notice her, I'm sure. She's trustworthy, so answer any questions she asks and a few she doesn't ask. Tell her what she needs to know, what she doesn't need to know, and a little of what nobody wants to know about. She's seen a lot of trouble, it won't faze her, and she's bloody good at what she does."

"I see."

John fixed him in the eye, "And after this, you're to keep off of her. She's off limits. She's doing us a favour, you're not to insult that by pulling your George Orwell act on her."

"Really, John," Mycroft said with a ghost of amusement. 

"No, really. I know you, Mycroft, you're a worse puppet master than **he** was, you're like a kid with a big hammer and everyone around you is a nail. You're to keep off Miss Smith and that's final."

Mycroft was almost grinning now, "Or what, Dr. Watson?"

"Or I call her off, you stay on that barrel and I disappear."

Silence descended and Mycroft chewed it thoughtfully. "You are so insistant, one would almost think this Miss Smith of yours has something to hide."

"She does. She's taking you into her confidence just as much as we're asking you to take her into yours. It's an even trade. Don't blow it. She's no threat to England but there's a lot of people who don't see it that way. I'd like you not to be one of them."

An even longer silence, well chewed over as Mycroft gazed at John speculatively. "I begin to see why my brother took such a liking to you," he said at last with a little smile.

* * * *

_Dear Ted,_

_So here I am, Colin MacIntyre, second cousin once removed of the Carter family. Took bloody forever to get the travel permits and passports sorted out but that's bureaucracy for you. Whomever Mrs. Jones is, she's a genius at matching people up. How long did you talk to her about me? Bolivia is one of her daughters and she's one of the most level-headed, open-minded people I've ever met; I was initially misled by her chipper personality into thinking she was a ditz, but have quickly learned otherwise. She has superior knack for people, and that included people like her family, and me, to my surprise. Her younger cousin, Tanis, has the same talents, wrapped up in a more tranquil personality. Trevor Carter, Bolivia's husband, is an intellectual man with a passion for literature. And trains, which proved to be highly entertaining given the state of Tibet's railway system, let me tell you._

He reached for his teacup and took a sip, making a face at the salty, alien taste. He'd actually typed a number of these letters since his death, though they were mainly morose. It really did help, that trip to Oslo, that contact with John, and the songs and images that John continued to upload to their media players. His mind was ticking over comfortably, no longer quite so bogged down by depression. Writing helped him straighten out his thoughts and writing to John as though there were a chance that John might actually get to read them, helped his mood.

_Their eighteen year old son, Michael, is practically Mini-Me, apart from his ginger hair and elfin face. Just as quiet, just as thoughtful, we even share a lot of interests including a knack for solving puzzles. His sixteen year old sister, Karen, has a knack for languages and spotting patterns. She has a lot in common with her aunt, Trevor's sister Rae. They both remind me strongly of Mummy. There are others in the tour group, but these are the ones I interact with the most._

_Ted, they're all bloody geniuses! Not only that but they were activists and have considerable experience in strife zones, they're used to handling weapons, used to negotiating with gangs, guerillas and governments - exactly the sort of people I need. And the best part is, they don't seem to think I'm odd._

That **was** different. He'd eavesdropped on Bolivia's phone call to her mother, curious to know what she made of him. Outside of Mummy, nobody had ever described him as 'lovely' or 'darling' before - 'rude', 'weird' and 'freak' were the more usual epithets. And indeed, he didn't seem to trouble them at all, they seemed to take his interests, his quietness, his bluntness, even his outbursts, in stride. 

_They've roomed me with Michael because we really are very similar. I'd wondered why Michael had packed an arrangement of sticks and rolled-up tapestry, until the first night we roomed together, when he'd assembled them into a privacy screen. It's not total privacy but it's enough for both of us. Michael doesn't talk much either, he prefers text and IM and he's fascinated by neurology and the human brain. I quite like him._

_I quite like Karen too, she's not the usual sort of teenage girl. She's much quieter and also intellectual, bit of a philosopher. Yesterday she asked what I was doing. I told her I was looking for anything to indicate which cartel cells are involved and where they might be located, she nodded and then... that was it. No further questions. She was studying the Tibetan alphabet and I suggested she try treating it like a cypher. If nothing else, it'd keep her from getting too bored. She asked what I meant so I showed her some examples, including one of the secret messages I'd received from Moriarty, which had resolved to be a grid cypher. And then she asked, and it was so cute, she flailed her hands around while she was trying to think of how to express her question, just like my Mum used to do. She asked, "What about it triggers you to recognise that it's that kind of cypher, as opposed to some other kind?" You know, I don't believe anyone has ever asked me that question before._

_Our Tibetan guide has an elderly granny who seems to have taken a liking to us. Doesn't speak a word of English of course, but makes herself clear enough with gesture and drawings. She saw Karen with the alphabet and started teaching her. Seems Karen has quite a gift for languages - she had the agglutinative nature and grammatical structure sussed out in no time, it seemed. Now she's the one ordering tea and momos in soup. The tea here is an acquired taste. I don't think I'm in any danger of acquiring it. What I'd give for a decent cup of Earl Grey!_

_Thanks for the hint, by the by. I had been thinking along those lines, nice to have some confirmation that it's probably the right track._

Working with one brain was interesting; working with two had been fun. Working with another puzzle-solver and two pattern-weaver brains was just magic. They'd even had training! They not only used their brains, they applied them in ways that maximized their potential. _Why couldn't I have people like this back home? Not fair._

They each had their own methodology for recording their thought patterns - Rae drew on large sheets of paper whereas Karen used mindmapping software on her netbook and Michael drew messy sketches on his tablet (and occasionally, his arms.) Trevor thought in trains, which was interesting in itself, and Bolivia thought about relationships. Sometimes they exploded their thinking, reaching into the realms of the ridiculous, before pulling back and extracting valuable ideas he might not have considered otherwise. _This is even more fun than collaborating with the American FBI agents,_ he thought wonderingly, taking images of Rae's drawings and Trevor's trains (and Michael's arms.) He saved them, along with copies of Karen's and Michael's visual notes, to his USB sticks - valuable as much for the record of thought as for the information they contained. He'd spent a few happy hours collating the information and uploading it to his contacts at Interpol. _Brilliant, just brilliant, just amazing. At this rate, we might just get the Black Lotus cracked and still have time for some actual touring._

Which is why it was a **bit** of a surprise when, after a fortnight of such productive brainstorming, things heated up in a hurry. 

It happened while the family were browsing around a marketplace. He and Karen had been playing with some singing bowls, testing their tones. Some were soothingly hypnotic, whereas others set their teeth on fire, metaphorically speaking. They turned to get Michael's opinion, as he was usually nearby, only to find he had wandered off again. Not unusual, they all had a tendency to follow their curiosity, but his gut was telling him that something was off. "Do you see Bolivia anywhere?" he asked casually, because he didn't. And Bolivia was **always** visible. 

Karen shook her head, "I don't see Aunt Rae either. Or Daddy."

 _Large marketplace, easy to lure someone away with promises of interesting merchandise... Except these are experienced travellers and very clever, wise to tricks. So either weapons involved or someone they already knew._ "Karen, look about for anything that might have been left as a message, something that might have been dropped or left or scribbled. And don't leave my side."

Karen nodded and took his hand, startling him momentarily. He squeezed back reassuringly, though she was considerably calmer than he'd expected her to be. He'd expected her to be panicking and begging him to find her family, as though he could pull them out of a hat; instead she was focusing on the task she'd been given, like she should - rare that anyone ever actually did that, though. _So much like Mummy,_ he thought. "Here," she said and dragged him across to a market stall where a printed scarf lay discarded. 

"Lotus pattern, dropped in an arrow shape, pointing north," he nodded, "Excellent. Come on, we need to get back. We'll be getting a message soon, I'm sure of it, and I need my teddy bear!"

It was a long run back to their rooms, made longer because of the way he was dodging. "What?" Karen panted, gasping for breath.

"Now listen," he said, rooting around in his pack for the bear, "It won't take long before our messenger figures out where we've gone and comes to collect us. Try not to hate him too much, he's mostly an innocent. They're holding his grandmother hostage."

"How did you know that, Mr. Holmes?"

They both turned around to see their guide staring at them with a kicked-puppy expression. Sherlock smiled lightly, "Obvious, really. We already trusted you and you speak our language, you'd be the first choice of lure. You're an honest person from a good family and your face indicates guilt, fear and regret, most likely because someone you love is being threatened to make you comply. Since you introduced us to your grandmother, she is the most logical choice to make us comply as well. Am I wrong?"

The guide put his face in his hands and choked back tears. "I am so sorry. So much shame."

"Take us to them and we'll see what can be done."

The guide nodded sadly, "You must give your devices."

"Obviously," Sherlock huffed, passing over his phone and laptop. Karen looked tearful as she turned over her netbook. He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile but she didn't look at him. Then they were herded into a van. He sat next to her, watching her cuddling her stuffed bunny and rocking with a blank face. "You remind me a lot of my Mummy," he said, "My Mummy used to do that."

"It keeps me calm," Karen said in her soft, flat voice. 

"Yes, that's why Mummy did it too. She used to sway when she was happy, like you and Rae do. Not that anyone saw that except me and my brother, I don't think. Mummy wasn't often happy."

"Why not?"

Sherlock sighed, "Because she didn't fit, so people tried to turn her into something she just couldn't be."

"What was that?"

"Ordinary."

Karen smiled faintly, "Was she like us, then?"

It was Sherlock's turn to smile. "You know, I think she might just have been." He sighed, "Ohhhh Karen, why aren't there more people like you in my life? You and your family. My life was filled with ignorant gits who couldn't be bothered to **think.** They jump to the most obvious conclusion first and then they shoehorn bits of the evidence and twist it around until it sort of fits but it really doesn't and so they get it all _wrong._ And the worst part is, they're the _police._ "

Karen nodded, "Aunt Rae says most allistic people think in stories. It sounds like the people you knew are what she calls barricade-thinking people."

He smirked, "Oh, I like that. I do hope I get some time to talk to Rae, she _really_ reminds me of my Mum. New words, new ideas..."

"Mummy and Tanis have allism but they're not barricade people."

"No, they're not, they're really quite... welcoming, really. Haven't met very many people like them." He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, "Are you ready for this? I'm afraid I can't predict how this is going to end."

Karen rocked harder and clutched her bunny but nodded, "Nobody can. It's.... not the first time."

 _And you're only sixteen,_ he thought. The van slowed and stopped and they were roughly ushered out by an armed escort. "Hmph. Doesn't this count as blasphemy? Sacriledge?" He looked around at the ruins of what had once been a temple, into which they were being steered. "Used to be a nice place. Tch. No respect for culture."

"We could say the same about you, Mr. Holmes," said a new voice, "Disrupter of our operation in Great Britain."

"Hm? Sorry, Sherlock Holmes is dead. And I quite liked the circus. A bit pagenty but that's what circuses are for." As he talked, he continued to look around at the temple remains. At the number of armed thugs, at the positions of the rest of Karen's family and the guide's grandmother. At the makes and types of guns. At the one who seemed to be in charge. 

"Quite a good trick, Mr. Holmes. But sadly, it will not be a trick now. You have quite a fine long nose, Mr. Holmes, but you are not careful where you put it."

"Well you know what they say about men with long noses," he smirked, "I've been accused of that too." There was a snerk, then laughter. Behind him, even Karen was giggling. The general and thugs all looked at each other and at their laughing prisoners. This was not supposed to happen? 

It was right then that one of the thugs chose to grab Sherlock's arm. "Don't touch me!" he roared and swung the teddy bear at his head. It connected with a loud **_*CLONK!*_** The man staggered back, dropping his weapon. _I just clocked a man with a plushie and nobody has a video camera. Proof there is no God._

The prisoners laughed even harder and the thugs stared in disbelief - and that split second of inattention was all the prisoners needed to break Hell loose. _Experienced freedom fighters,_ Sherlock thought as he slammed his fists upward into the jaw of another guard, then smashed the man's head down against his knee, _In countries that take political activism very physically._ He caught movement out of the corner of his eye, _Martial artists. But so are the hired muscle and they've got guns._ Forgotten in the background, Karen had picked up the fallen rifle and was inspecting it. He span back and used his teeth to pull a hidden seam in the teddy bear. _John, fetch me my revolver!_ He shook some stuffing off his weapon and sighted on the man grappling with Michael. _John could probably kneecap him._ _You're not that good. You'll have to settle for a kidney,_ his inner voice responded. He snarled at it and fired. Another shot took out the man who'd smashed his rifle into Bolivia's jaw. 

"Everybody stop!" He turned to see... exactly what he'd expected to see: The general, holding a weapon to the old lady's head. _Honestly, it's just so cliche. Even I tried it once._ "You will cease fighting and do what I say, or the old woman dies. And put that gun down, girl!" Sherlock lowered his gun and stole a glance out of the corner of his eye. Karen glanced briefly up at the general, then continued sussing out the rifle. She tested its weight in her hands, pursing her lips thoughtfully. "Put it down before you get hurt. Are you deaf? I said put it down now! Is the girl stupid?" 

Karen looked up and briefly met the old woman's eyes. One of the thugs strode forward to take the weapon, which she, very calmly and without a word, swung around and fired. Blood sprayed and the man fell screaming, clutching his leg. Karen gave the gun an annoyed look, muttering to herself. The general started shouting, the men pressed forward, the family prepared to fight, and Sherlock saw the old woman lean out of the way as he brought his gun around and fired. 

The general, blood gushing from his shoulder where it met the neck, flopped backwards as the old woman fell from his arms. Everything went silent. Then there were the sounds of choppers and the voices of police shouting through bullhorns. 

Relief didn't last for long. Almost immediately he knew that something was wrong; he and Bolivia rushed forward at the same moment. "No breathing, no pulse," she reported, her speech slurred by her swelling, bruised face. Sherlock started chest compressions while she yelled at the weeping guide, telling him to get a medic, then grabbed a uniformed officer and mimed as best she could.

 _Could do without 'Staying Alive' as background music, thanks._

_But what could be more appropriate?_ the tiny Moriarty voice purred, _It's got the correct rhythm and tempo. It's being recommended, actually. Anyways, it's pointless. She's dead. Stroke, by the look of it. She wasn't leaning, she was slumping._ He didn't answer it. _"His voice was so sof-*"_ He didn't answer that either. _"Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock."_ No, no it wasn't. _"Friends keep you safe."_ Go away, John. 

Finally hands pulled him back away from the body, and he looked up into the streaming eyes of the guide. He just shook his head at the man, then turned and went to where Karen stood, clutching her bunny. "Are you alright?" he asked softly. 

She nodded, then shook her head. "No," she said, as a few tears spilled over. 

He took her arm gently. "You were brilliant, utterly fantastic. They clearly didn't see you as a threat. You used that beautifully." She nodded mutely. "Sir Hopsalot is safe?" She nodded again then unzipped the belly and withdrew her phone. Sherlock peeled the Hello Kitty cover off of it and retrieved his SD card, then handed the phone back to her. "My Interpol contacts will be arriving in a bit. Keep the data sticks until they arrive." 

She nodded and zipped up the bunny again. "You hid a gun in yours?" she asked quietly.

Sherlock smiled - he'd tucked his gun back into the bear during the confusion. "I named him 'John' after my best friend. People call him a teddy bear because he looks small, cute and harmless, too," he winked. 

* * * *

_Dear Ted,_

_Well, we were right, and we pulled it off - capped the Black Lotus operants in Tibet and probably a fair part of China by now. I doubt they'll get all of it though but it'll be enough to put a significant dent in their operations for some time to come. Far better than the Iranian operation._

_I wish you could have been there, though. You should have seen it. Karen got hold of a loaded semi-automatic rifle and they were shouting at her to put it down. They actually thought that shouting at her would scare her into submission, Ted! Ridiculous, they completely deserved what happened to them, in my opinion. Brilliant! And then she complained that the gun was pulling to the right, she hadn't meant to hit that close to the femoral artery. The bloke will live but you can bet **his** limp won't be psychosomatic._

A soft scratching noise made him look up to see Michael standing by the privacy screen, "Um.... Colin?"

"Mm?" 

"Um.... I brought you some tea," the lad said. He sat up, mildly surprised - he and Michael didn't talk a lot, given they both preferred to text or IM one another. "Um, I could only find a China black.. I don't know what kind it is.. and they only had honey and yak milk... I'm sorry it's not the Earl Grey you wanted, but it was all I could find."

He took the cup the young man was offering, both surprised and touched by the gesture. "You went looking for this? For me?" The young man nodded, scratching his head anxiously. He made a mild face at the taste of the yak milk but sipped again. "How did you know I wanted Earl Grey? I'm sure I hadn't mentioned it."

The lad looked away, shuffling in his nervousness. "I heard you typing about it a few weeks ago."

He paused with the teacup halfway to his lips, "What do you mean?"

"Your keyboard, it makes unique sounds. The F key is slightly sticky and makes a bit of a gummy sound, the S is clicky - I think the plastic seat is about to break, to be honest. You hit the L key harder than the others, probably because it's stiffer, so it makes a bit of a thunking sound...." Michael trailed off under the weight of his stare.

But a slow smile was spreading over his face, "You can hear all that? You've got incredibly sharp hearing! And you deduced that my L key is stiffer and harder to press, which means...?"

"You... probably have some pain in that finger? In your right hand?"

And he grinned. "Spot on."

Michael grinned then scratched his head again. "Um..... Are you really Sherlock Holmes?"

"Sherlock Holmes is dead. I'm lots of people now. Everyone and no one."

"But... you **were** Sherlock Holmes?"

"Mm-hmm."

".....Can I ask...?" He winced, expecting the boy to ask if he was a fraud. But he raised an eyebrow and the young man plunged ahead, "Why'd you stop updating your website? Before you died, I mean."

He snorted, "Not worth the effort. No one looked at it."

Michael's eyes went wide and he shook his head. "I loved it!" he blurted. 

"Really? That's not what people usually say." He watched the young man look bewildered, afraid he'd given offense somehow - oh how he knew that feeling! - and smiled, "But most people can't deduce that I have mild tendonitis by how my typing sounds."

Michael grinned again. "So... you faked your death then?"

"Obviously."

"So...... How did _they_ know who you were?"

He smiled mirthlessly, "I've been wondering the very same thing. Glad you picked up on it."

They looked up at a soft knock at the door and Bolivia peered in. "Our guide is here," she said, "We've been invited to the funeral. It's being held tomorrow and they're inviting us to watch the burial."

He froze for just an instant and shot a quick glance at Michael, then looked at Bolivia, "You do know what a common burial in Tibet involves, yes?"

* * * *

The air was cold and it was a long hike up to the hills behind the monestary. They stayed mostly to the fringes of the Tibetan family group, not wanting to intrude on their grief. They'd planned to hang back near the bottom of the charnal ground but the old woman's family repeated their invitation to go up to watch the burial. Only he, Karen, Michael, and Rae accepted. 

_Glad John's not here,_ he thought, _He'd call it morbid. He'd call me morbid for going to see it._

_Probably accuse you of crashing it,_ the tiny voice said sourly. He didn't answer it; it was probably right. 

The aroma of juniper incense wafted and he looked up to see the birds wheeling against the dawn-streaked sky. It had started out so promisingly. John really had seemed different, had seemed to accept him as he was and not to mind him that much. But then, he'd shown that he really wasn't that different at all. And when Sherlock had trusted him the most, trusted him to share his worst fears with him, John had.. told him he was over-reacting, shut him down, and then shut him out. Just like everybody else. He'd trusted John, and when he needed him the most, John had shot him down. Just like everybody else. But everything with John was different, as was this - this time, John had broken his heart. And so he'd locked himself down and pushed John away and when the time came, he'd crushed John as impersonally as he could, so that John would leave and go about his life, without ever knowing how Sherlock felt. 

The birds wheeled overhead as the monks continued their preparations. It hadn't worked. Fact is, he'd gone to Oslo to dump the man. He hadn't wanted to get personal about it but if that was what it took...

And he found that he couldn't. Not after John had admitted to having a stuffed otter named "Sherlock." Not after John had said that living with him was a mistake he wanted to make again. Not after John had admitted his fault, and apologised. _"Worth a second chance,"_ Rae had agreed, when he'd confided in her.

Rae's face was composed, watching as the birds descended and the screeching arose. He snuck a glance at Karen and saw her weeping quietly, and briefly wondered if she was horrified. _No,_ he decided, _Remembering._ A glance at Michael's stone face told everything; his own face went to stone like that, when he was holding back strong emotions. But the boy didn't avert his gaze. 

Somewhere along the line, he'd realized that he fit in with them, with this family. They did things the way that he did, had similar body language, felt things similarly, thought in similar ways. He fit in with them and he understood them better than he'd understood anyone, after Mummy. He'd spent some time talking with Rae and come away feeling..... not sure what. But feeling better about John. 

The birds screamed and gibbered. He put his hands in his pockets and felt the weight of the singing bowl. It was the old woman's; she'd noticed that he'd found the sound soothing, pleasing. Her family had given it to him. He wondered if it would be appropriate to play it, but decided against it. 

The birds rose in a cloud of flapping wings and squawking. Feathers drifted down, causing delight among the family. He felt one fall onto his hair and reached up to pull it down. "It is a blessing." He turned to see their guide approaching them. "It means, she has gone into the _bardo."_

"Thank you," Rae said, stepping forward, "I'm very sorry for your loss."

"I'm sorry we couldn't save her," he added, when he could trust himself to speak. 

The guide shook his head, "The _bardo_ called her." And that was all that needed to be said. He put the feather into his pocket with the singing bowl and joined the group in descending back to the monestary. 

The sun rose.


	4. Four Strong Winds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft has a spot of trouble, Kent Shakespeare finishes a mission, Ted Anders takes another holiday, and John has to get creative to help Sherlock deal with the aftermath of a personal hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings include triggers for human trafficking, child pornography, underage prostitution, drug use, excessive cell phone use and guys being schmoopy.

It was a dark and dreary night, not unusual for London. He said goodbye to his hostess, then stepped out into the street, swinging his umbrella lightly. It was a short walk to where his car awaited him, only a couple of blocks - he always kept a measure of privacy on these visits. Still, it was "the Ealing Triangle", so called because of the number of classified incidents that took place in the vicinity. Unusual occurances. Being jumped by muggers was certainly unusual for this generally low-crime neighborhood. Even more unusual that the man being mugged drew himself into a calm stance and started to spin the umbrella into high speed. 

_Not muggers,_ Mycroft thought, watching them calmly, _Movements are too polished. Professionals. Intended to look like a mugging._ He was weaving the spinning umbrella in front of him, keeping his attackers at bay. Then two tried to rush him and the spinning umbrella was connecting in a cross-cut pattern, drawing yelps of pain. Mycroft kept up the brutal onslaught, keeping the men from entering melee range, until he could dart forward and jab, finishing one with a brutal stab of the point. He whirled, dodged the second man and whacked him on the neck with the tip of the umbrella with a sharp crack, stunning him, then pulled him across and stabbed him similarly. Then he became aware of a sound behind him and a knife skittered across the pavement at his feet. He turned in time to see the third man fall to his knees, clutching his shattered hand. A sharp crack of the umbrella knocked him out. Mycroft stabbed the point a third time, his face slightly curious. 

Peace resumed. He pulled out his phone and texted his assistant to arrange a quick clean-up, then knelt to inspect the third man's bloody hand. A bullet had gone right through, but he had heard no gunshot. _Used a silencer,_ he thought, then looked for and found the bullet. _Regulation. Angle of penetration, should have come from..._ Extrapolating from the angle, he imagined the bullet's trajectory and frowned, _The attic of the house I just left. But she doesn't like guns._ He frowned thoughtfully.

[19:38 Mycroft Holmes] An excellent shot, Dr. Watson.

[19:39 John Watson] Are you injured?

[19:40 Mycroft Holmes] A few bruises and possibly a twisted ankle. Would you like a ride home? My car is two blocks north east.

[19:40 John Watson] You alright to walk on that ankle?

[19:41 Mycroft Holmes] Certainly. 

[19:42 John Watson] Then I'll take a cab. See you at home.

Mycroft smirked then carried on towards his car, leaning a little more heavily on his umbrella now that the adrenaline was wearing down enough for the pain to seep through. By the time he reached Baker Street, it was definitely hurting. He let John assist him up the stairs to 221b, his umbrella now serving double duty as a cane. 

"Just sprained," John announced after examining it, "I'll wrap it for you. I've got anti-inflammatories and an ice pack."

"Kind of you," Mycroft said and smiled when John snorted. Well yes, it was the man's calling, but still. "You're very good at stealth, Doctor. I was unaware that you were there."

"I'll take that as a compliment," John grunted, wrapping the elastic bandage lightly, "Those idiots weren't expecting as much of a fight as they got. What's the umbrella poisoned with?"

Mycroft smiled, "What makes you think I would poison my umbrella?"

"Well the injector in the tip was a bit of a clue," John said, "Saw the trigger in the handle when I was putting it to dry one day. Knew you were a stick fighter, though. You were leaning on it when we first met. Modern umbrellas are too flimsy to take full weight, so it had to be a reinforced custom job. And you **always** have it with you."

Mycroft smirked, "It is a slow-acting neurological toxin, pretty much undetectable. It presents as a fast-progressing palsy, and the first systems affected are, of course, speech and hands."

"Sounds ingenious."

"Indeed."

John looked up with a bit of a grin, "Sherlock's?"

"Mine, actually. Biochemistry was a bit of a passion of mine when I was younger."

John finished wrapping then went to get the ice pack and the anti-inflammatories. "So it's me they're holding over you. Never saw that one coming."

Mycroft shrugged, "What can I say? My brother is extremely fond of you. If you were to come to harm, it would render everything he's sacrificed pointless and he would give up. That simply cannot be allowed to happen. The work he's doing is far too important not only to this nation's security, but to the security of many countries. His sole motivation is your continued safety, but unfortunately, it does make for a rather large vulnerability."

"But you don't know who's doing the holding, who's calling the shots."

"I have been unable to determine the identity of the intermediary," Mycroft agreed.

John shook his head, grinning wryly. "I swear, if you opened the Encyclopaedia Britannica to 'Over-Protective', you'd find Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes."

"I did warn you that he's given to the theatrical."

"Says the man who takes 'Big Brother is watching you' far too literally. Come on, Mycroft, who **pays** people to spy on their own family?"

"Anybody who grew up under Sigurd Holmes, really. Father had very... exacting standards."

John grunted thoughtfully, remembering that Mycroft was supposedly as much like his father as Sherlock was like his mother. The ideal image of domestic bliss, the Holmes family did not seem to be. "You can stay here, if you like," he said at last, "That ankle needs rest and elevation. You can sleep in Sherlock's room, I'll take the couch."

Mycroft frowned, "Your wife?"

"Mary's heading out on business soon. I've booked holidays."

"I see."

"Anything you want me to tell him?"

Mycroft smiled sadly, "Unfortunately, I don't think he would believe it if you told him that I miss him."

"Probably not, but I'll tell him anyway."

"Where is he currently?"

John chewed his lip a few times. He remembered how **he** reacted when he first saw Murray Head on the media player. Finally he admitted, "Bangkok." He'd expected it, but he still winced when he saw the look of anxious horror on Mycroft's face. "Yeah, I know, I know. _I know,_ Mycroft! That's why I'm going, and I've got a plan to get him out of there."

* * * *  
The water beat down, long since run cold, pounding down on the back of Kent Shakespeare. He lay curled on the shower floor, clutching his head. That was one of the hardest missions he'd ever had to do and he was craving relief. John's contacts had managed to keep his prescription up but he'd run out a little while ago and it would be days yet before he could get more. 

And here, in this city, relief had been available in other forms, served by girls who barely counted as tweens. Just 7% would get him through. And he'd clutched his ring, and remembered who he was doing this for. 

It had been so hard to leave the Carters. In just a few short months, he'd grown closer to them than he had to anyone else save John and Mrs. Hudson. They felt like the family he'd never had but always wished for. He'd promised to keep in touch, a promise he would keep, and when he left for his next chase, when he changed his appearance, he'd dyed his hair ginger. It seemed so long ago now. It had been ages before he'd even worked up the nerve to admit to John, via the _Chess_ soundtrack, where he was. But finally, the wretched mission was complete. 

He pulled himself up and shut the water off, finally feeling frozen enough that he could possibly get to sleep. Yeah right - he wouldn't sleep tonight, he knew that. He crawled into his bed and clutched his teddy, curling up around it in a tight ball. Then he stared at his ring and reached for his media player. Craving relief from the pain. Needing the reassurance of John's caring through the songs he'd uploaded. He was so distracted in his misery that he almost missed that two new songs had been added. Then his heart leaped when he saw Lindsay Buckingham's _Holiday Road_ \- **that** was what he needed, to see John again! He cuddled the teddy, listening to Death Cab For Cutie's _I'll Follow You Into The Dark_ and fought back tears. Then his whirling mind tripped over a lyric and stalled. 

He picked up his phone and texted to his Interpol contact. The bust had broken up a large centre for drug- and human-trafficking, but there were leads to other hubs and transfer points and the child pornography ring was much harder to trace. But some things stuck in the mind. He jumped up and paced in agitation, now too keyed up to sleep. Finally his phone chimed and he punched the air. "YES!" he shouted and span about. Chase a lead **and** get to see John again? Chase a lead **with** John again? - oh yes! He opened his laptop and looked for flights. Then he uploaded _11 O'Clock Tick-Tock_ by U2 and started packing. 

* * * *

John checked his phone and the media player and his list of arrival times. Even a direct flight from Bangkok still took seventeen hours, almost twice as long as his flight from London, and if it was a stop-over, it'd be even longer. And he had no idea which flight Sherlock would be on - if he'd interpreted the message correctly. _He had to have,_ he told himself, _'Bangkok to Calgary,' can't get much clearer than that._ And so every time a flight from Bangkok was due, he went back to sit in International Arrivals, and waited. He browsed the tourist brochures to pass the time and tucked a couple of leaflets into his pocket then glanced up at the clock and yawned. The eleven o'clock flight was delayed due to the weather but had managed to touch down and would be disembarking shortly. The doors opened and he watched people trickle out and he waited.

Then grinned and got up. That tall, that walk, and staring down at his phone - he was actually quite easy to spot if one knew what to look for. "What the bloody hell have you done to your hair?" he laughed as he approached. 

"Dyed it ginger, obviously," Sherlock's tone belied the relief in his eyes. 

"It doesn't suit you," John said as they walked to the baggage claim, "I got us a room, it's not far, and I've hired a car as well, we'll need it. I know you're here on business but I've got some holidaying ideas I think you'll like."

Sherlock grabbed his case and eyed John suspiciously, "I looked for business here **after** you suggested it."

"So it was a good thing I suggested it then." 

The outer doors slid open and Sherlock jumped back with a yelp as he was blasted with cold wind and snow. "What the hell, they said it was supposed to be spring?"

"Yeah, no, that was yesterday," John grinned, "Today it decided to be blizzard. It's supposed to be 23 by the end of the week."

"What??"

"Yeah! Crazy weather here," John grinned as he unlocked the car. 

"John, why have you dragged me to sodding _Canada?_ And why _here?_ Why not.. Toronto, or even Montreal?"

"No mountains."

"Oh, who cares about mountains, John? What were you thinking?"

"Well, mountains, big sky, skiing, snowboarding.. but _mainly_ , I was thinking 'cabins in the mountains during the off-peak season when there's not many people around, Sherlock could probably do with a bit of solitude after a place like Bangkok,'" he grinned and heaved Sherlock's case out of the car boot and led the way into the hotel. "And then I was thinking, 'Banff Conservatory, world famous, Sherlock might enjoy one or two of their concerts.'"

He grinned while Sherlock chewed that over in the elevator, "Well alright but Vancouver has mountains and a lovely symphony orchestra, and it's on the Pacific..."

John grinned even wider, "Ah but does Vancouver have--" he whipped out the leaflet for his trump card, "A dinosaur museum?"

Sherlock took it and frowned at it, "A what?"

"A dinosaur museum. Right in the heart of the digs. They have a bone lab."

"They do?"

"See, _mostly_ what I was thinking was, 'Oh hey, museum of paleontology, with a live bone lab, Sherlock can paste himself to the window for hours and probably pester the staff begging for a closer look.' They've got a mosasaur right now, I checked." He unlocked the door of their room, "But I understand that Vancouver has a big aquarium with orcas. So which'll it be, then, orcas or mosasaurs?"

"Mosasaurs," Sherlock admitted, letting his pack slide to the floor, "And the cabin sounds good too." He sat down on the bed and raked his fingers over his scalp.

"Can't wait to try the beef here, I hear it's pretty good," John was saying as he dialed the phone, "I'm ordering up room service, you want anything in particular? You're bagged out, I can tell, you look like you haven't slept or eaten in days, have you." Sherlock shook his head. John watched him carefully while he placed orders. "Right, thirty minutes, she says. Think you can stay awake that long? Want to catch a shower?" 

Sherlock shook his head again, "Showered before I left."

John eyed him again then grabbed the remote control and hopped onto the bed, "Right. Alright, then, let's see what they've got for crap telly." Sherlock skootched up beside him. John eyed his friend then put his arm around the hunched shoulders, "...What happened?" 

Sherlock shook his head mutely and wouldn't look at John. "Do you have any more of those dopamine pills?" he asked finally, "I've run out."

"How long ago?"

"Almost a fortnight now."

"Feeling it?"

"Oh yeah."

John nodded, "Yes, I've brought more. You can start on them again in the morning. If you take one now it'll keep you awake longer and you're running on the edge, I can tell. You look like you're holding yourself together with spit and baling wire after you ran out of duct tape."

Sherlock raked his scalp again and passed his hands over his face, "Wouldn't be surprised." He felt John's fingers riffle through his hair and a soft noise scaped him. Then he grimaced, " _No,_ now shut up about it."

"Wasn't going to ask."

"Yes, I could hear you not-asking," Sherlock grumbled, slipping down to snuggle against John. 

John chuckled and ruffled the dyed strands again, then started to scritch and massage gently with his fingertips when he felt his friend start to relax. "Tell me, when you're ready," he said softly, "I can tell something bad happened, it's written all over you if you know where to look. Just remember, I served in Afghanistan. You see a lot of things in Afghanistan." 

"Didn't I say to shut up about it?"

"Yes, you did, and this is me ignoring it," he smooched the top of Sherlock's head. 

When the food arrived, Sherlock was barely awake enough to eat it, barely awake enough to get undressed, and barely aware when John rolled him under the blankets. He was asleep before John had finished tucking him in. 

* * * * 

He awoke to slivers of sunlight and the sound of the telly turned low. "Good afternoon, sleepyhead," came John's voice, gently teasing, "'Bout time you woke up. You've slept almost fourteen hours. You must've needed it."

Sherlock nodded and raked his fingers through his hair. "Feels like it," he mumbled then looked around blearily, "Is there tea?"

"There is, and there's a couple of officers from the local law enforcement agencies looking for Agent Sigerson. I've told them you're fresh off a seventeen-hour flight and you'll text when you're rested."

He nodded and smiled as he took the offered cup, sipped a few times and got up. A glance at the clock showed it to be afternoon and he grimaced then peeked out the window at the bright sunshine. "What the heck? Yesterday it was a blizzard, where's it all gone??"

"I know, it hit a high of plus-sixteen," John grinned, "Madness."

"How far is it to the dinosaur museum?" Sherlock asked, gazing out at the mountains marching across the horizon. They looked so close. 

"About an hour and a half north and east."

"And the cabin place you were thinking of?"

"A little more than an hour west." John saw Sherlock's expression and suggested, "We could make a day trip of it, if you like. Leave early, drive out to the museum, spend the day, have supper in Calgary and drive back?" Sherlock nodded. "I take it the cabins are in the lead?" 

"Do they have internet?"

"I checked, yes."

"Then yes."

John grinned and reached for his phone, "Alright. Have some nosh and talk to your contacts and I'll make the arrangements. And here." He held out a bottle of tablets. Sherlock scrabbled for them and nearly spilled them in his haste to get one down. "Worked for you?"

"You have no idea," Sherlock nodded.

John smiled more tenderly, "Good." He went to make arrangements while Sherlock texted his contacts, arranging to meet them in an hour. John decided not to argue and simply ordered up a light lunch from room service, enough to get Sherlock jump-started, then kick him into the shower. 

For the next two hours, he listened while Agent Sigerson discussed his leads with the police reps, who were reluctant yet receptive. John understood their predicament; one never wanted to accept it when one of your fellows was busted for possession of kiddie porn, they're supposed to be the good guys! But that was just it, they're supposed to be the good guys - and when it looked like the ties were leading to more than just end-consumerism, they were stepping up to the plate. 

Still... Bangkok and kiddie porn and drugs. And John had seen the needle marks on Sherlock's arm, when he got out of the shower, despite his friend's furtive attempts to hide them, and despite his insistance that he hadn't relapsed. He wanted to press but the little voice in his head stopped him. _"Don't force it, he'll talk when he's ready,"_ it recited, _"Keep a calm energy, just keep yourself available and wait it out. Just 'be' with your friend." Of course! - he's having a massive shutdown!_ He felt proud of himself for recognising what was happening with Sherlock, then frowned - the realisation only worsened his suspicions. 

When the cops left, he touched Sherlock's shoulder lightly and said, "How 'bout we head out and get settled, then grab supper in Banff?"

Sherlock looked up, slightly puzzled, "It's after check-out, isn't it?"

"Who cares?" John shrugged, "Mycroft's paying for it."

"Oh," Sherlock said, and grinned. 

He said nothing the whole ride out. Blessedly, John didn't fill the silence with chatter, but instead found a public radio station playing light jazz music. He watched the scenery pass, lovely though it was, but he just couldn't stop his mind from whirling. The cabin was just right, a stand-alone with a fireplace and a tiny kitchenette. John was right though, this time of year, there was hardly anyone around. He flopped down into one of the chairs and pressed his temples, then looked up to see John watching him with that look again, "What?"

"Just really glad to see you again," John smiled. Sherlock couldn't help but smile back. 

They chose supper in the virtually-empty dining room and a night in of crap telly. John puttered about, unpacking a few things and putting the leftovers into the fridge for later snacking. Sherlock hovered beside him. He raised his hand briefly then let it fall. John glanced over his shoulder, "What?" He saw Sherlock's hesitant posture and guessed, "If you want to hug me, just go ahead, I won't mind." Sherlock's arms immediately slid around his waist. John leaned back against his chest and reached up to ruffle his friend's hair. "You're daft, you know that?" John said affectionately and smooched his cheek. Sherlock said nothing but John felt the faint, faint tremble. He linked his fingers with Sherlock's and let him hold him for several minutes. 

When Sherlock started to draw back, John said, "I brought you something from home. I'll take it back with me, of course, I know you can't carry it." He went to get a box he'd brought with him, a box that was just the right size to hold the violin case that John was extracting from it. Sherlock opened it wordlessly and lifted out his violin. He tuned it and plucked the strings a few times, then set it back down. Then he turned and grabbed John and pulled him into a bear hug, shaking. John patted him and kissed his cheek again, "I'll leave you to it, then, shall I?"

"You're amazing, John," Sherlock said, his voice rough, "And you just keep getting better." He strung the bow and rosinned it, then tucked the violin under his chin and began to play. John got his laptop and set it up, occasionally glancing up to smile at Sherlock. The other man's eyes were closed, focused on the music he was playing, something sweetly melancholic. 

After a while, silence fell. "Thanks," Sherlock said softly, putting the violin away. "Most I've had to think with lately has been the singing bowl."

John pulled his otter plushie from his bag and tucked it behind the headboard of the bed, "Hm? Singing bowl?"

Sherlock drew his teddy bear out of his case, then pulled out the small metal bowl and its mallet. He took the feather out of the bowl and ran the mallet around the rim, producing a smooth, clear ring. 

"Nice!" John said, "Did you get that in Tibet?" He picked up the bear, intending to tuck it beside the otter, and frowned, "Whoa, your bear's put on weight."

"Well I had to hide my revolver somewhere," Sherlock said with a little grin. 

"What, you're.. smuggling your gun inside a teddy bear??"

"Where else was I supposed to smuggle it? And don't answer that." John laughed and tucked the bear in beside the otter. "Came in handy in Tibet when we were taken by Black Lotus agents. You should have seen the look on their faces when I hit one of them with it."

John blinked, "You.... You cold-cocked a man with a loaded teddy?"

"And nobody ever has a camera."

"You hit a man with a teddy and I wasn't there to see it," John shook his head, laughing. He reached for his tea and the movement sent the feather fluttering. Sherlock grabbed for it anxiously then carefully tucked it into the singing bowl. "What's the feather for?"

"It's a vulture feather. I got it at the funeral of the old woman who owned the singing bowl." There was one of those 'pregnant pause' moments as John tried to work out exactly how he should respond to that. "Oh for god's sake, John, I didn't _crash it!_ "

"I didn't think you would," John lied.

"She'd been taken hostage by the Black Lotus agents and I shot the general holding her but she'd taken a stroke and died anyway. We tried CPR but it just wasn't to be. Her family invited us to the funeral and gave me her singing bowl to remember her by."

"And the... feather was from the..."

"The burial, yes. There were a lot of them; that one landed on my head. Our guide was the old woman's grandson; he told us that it's considered as a personal sign to the living that the deceased person's soul has....*" He broke off abruptly and turned away, his face going wooden. 

John watched him for a few moments. "You'll want to keep that safe, then. D'you want me to take it back to London with me? Keep it safe for you?" Sherlock sighed and nodded, handing the bowl to John. "I'll put it with your violin, then." When he came back he sat on the bed and got comfortable then flipped on the telly to surf for something suitably crappy.

"So that's my namesake, is it?" Sherlock said, coming to sit beside him. 

John looked up at his plushie and grinned, "Yup, that's my significant otter." Sherlock snickered and leaned in towards John, who put an arm around him. He sighed and skootched down so he could lie with his cheek against John's chest, listening to his heartbeat. He sighed again, falling silent as John stroked his hair. He reached up to twine his fingers with John's, feeling the rings on their left hands scrape together. 

They stayed that way for more than an hour. John thought that Sherlock had almost fallen asleep, when he finally whispered, "Bangkok was everything you're imaginging, only worse."

The words stabbed across John's cozy lethargy and he blinked awake. "Kind of figured that." He hesitated then added, "I've been trying to puzzle out why you've got needle tracks when you insist you haven't relapsed."

"It's saline."

John chewed that over for a moment, deciding, then quipped, "Well just because I keep saying you're dehydrated..."

It got the desired reaction - Sherlock Looked at him then chuckled and pressed his face against John's chest and sighed. "Drug dens and human trafficking and you know what Bangkok's famous for."

"Uh huh."

"Me, Jack and Tony, the agents I was with... We had to go undercover and infiltrate. So we had to pretend to **like** it."

John passed his free hand over his face, "Oh god."

"The girl assigned to me was just a kid, pumped full of hormones so she'd look older. I'd send her off to get tea then inject saline while she was gone." John nodded then shook his head, thinking of how long Sherlock had had to live like that. No wonder he looked pallid. He stroked Sherlock's hair and submerged his desire to press for details after Sherlock fell silent again. 

"A fire started during the bust," he whispered finally, "Don't know how, maybe someone knocked over a candle, maybe it was deliberate. The whole place went up, John."

"Anyone else get out?"

Sherlock nodded, "We managed to save some of the girls."

John smiled then frowned - Sherlock's voice sounded much too hollow. "...But?"

"They ran back, John."

"What.... back into the fire??"

"Yes." Sherlock turned and pressed his face into John's chest for a few moments then looked up at him, "You know what happens. There's no happily-ever-after. They just get passed along to another owner, if they aren't punished for bringing bad luck. They have very little hope of escaping that life and they knew it. They'd spent their entire lives being used and abused and they preferred to die in a fire rather than to face it again." John nodded in mute sadness. Abruptly Sherlock bounced up and scraped his nails through his hair, "They were just teenaged girls, John! And all their lives, they had no worth, no value as themselves, their only worth was how many tourists could they service in a day! What kind of world is it where the only choice a girl ever gets is how to die, where the only control she has over her life is when to end it?"

John looked up at him. "The kind of world I enlisted to fight," he said quietly, "I joined up to fight that kind of world."

Sherlock stared at him for several moments, at John in his cuddly jumper, his otter plushie, and his soulful eyes. He flopped back down onto the bed and curled up against him again. "Why do I keep doing this, John? Do away with one Moriarty and another pops up to replace him, literally."

"Checks and balances," John suggested, threading his fingers into Sherlock's hair again, "You and me, we're the lucky ones. Most people go their entire lives wondering what their purpose is in life; you and I, we were born knowing. You keep doing this for the same reason I chucked myself into a war, because it's where your gifts really shine, it's where you achieve your reason for being."

"Then they chucked you out of the war."

"Yeah. That really sucked."

Sherlock snorted. He rolled to his back and shifted until his head lay across John's belly, his legs over the edge of the bed. "These missions suck."

"I got the feeling you weren't having fun with them."

"They're not puzzles, there's no elegance, it's just...." he trailed off, not sure how to describe it. 

"The intellectual equivalent of walking through a square full of body parts and exploded people you know you can't save and it'd be kinder just to put them down, is my guess."

Sherlock stared at him for more than a minute, then put his head back down, "Well, that was graphic."

John shrugged, petting him, "C'est la vie, c'est la guerre. Ce n'est pas une pomme de terre."

After a long pause, Sherlock looked at him again, "'That's life, that's war, that's not a potato'?"

"Yeah, no, I don't know either," John grinned, "Been saying that for years, don't know where I picked it up from though."

"It's ludicrous," Sherlock said, staring up at the ceiling. Then he glanced back at John and smiled softly. 

"You look like you need some more beauty sleep," John smiled back. 

"Mm. Might do. You?"

"I'm nine hours behind myself," John shrugged, "You get your head down, I'll mess around on my laptop until I get tired."

"Hand me my bear." John did and Sherlock pulled the hidden seam and felt around until he found his personal jump drive, "I wrote you letters. Couldn't email them but.. you know."

John took it, grinning - he'd sent emails and text messages to a dead man. "Yeah. I know." 

Sherlock sat up and John rolled off the bed, then he lay down again and let his friend tuck him in. He felt John's fingers on his skin and let John lightly rub his neck and shoulders until he fell asleep.

* * * * 

John was sound asleep when Sherlock finally awoke, to find that he had spooned himself around the smaller man. Not that he minded, really. Pretty glad John wasn't minding anymore, either. John was nice to cuddle. _Probably why he wears those cuddly jumpers, to invite cuddling,_ he thought, his mind not awake enough to do more than free-associate, _Ugh, don't want to get up. Go away, stupid Nature, I'm busy._ But eventually the calls of Nature became hollaring that he could ignore no longer and he very carefully extricated himself from the bed.

Once awake, he put the kettle on and woke up John's laptop to get to work. Eventually he realized that the kettle had boiled and was now lukewarm and he put it on again, managing to catch it and make tea this time. Then he got back to work. A little while later he remembered about the tea, now steeped to the point of being brackish. He took and sip and made a face, _And John wonders why I always wait for him to make the tea. Because I make crap tea! Ugh, this is awful._ He threw the tea down the drain and went back to work. He leaned back and raked his fingers through his hair with an exasperated sigh, and amused himself by poking through John's minimized windows while he waited for a download to complete. 

And felt his heart splash into his stomach. _Oh god! Oh god, NO! I was sure I had deleted all of those ones!! Ohhh CRAP!!!!_ He stared at John, horrified, knowing for certain that John had read it. 

_Nice job breaking it, genius!_ his inner Moriarty purred, _Now he knows how you **really** feel. Way to go, you've cocked it up even worse than Mycroft!_ He jumped up and span about, tugging his hair anxiously, staring at John in anguish. There was no way John was going to believe him, there was just **no way.** He flopped back into his chair and smashed his head against the wall, then stared at John again. 

Whose eyes had cracked open. "'m gu'ssing th's h's t' d' wif me," he mumbled. He pushed himself up onto one elbow and rubbed his face, "Wha's wrong?"

Sherlock's knees hit the floor beside the bed with a thunk. "John, I'm so sorry, I thought for sure that I had deleted all of those ones, John, I swear to you, I don't feel that way anymore..."

"W'ldja sl'w d'wn," John rubbed his face again and looked blearily at Sherlock as he tried to make sense of what he was blathering on about. It clicked and he covered his face with his hand and flopped onto his back, "Oh god, don't tell me, I hit minimize instead of close. And you were on my laptop. Of course you were."

"John..."

"Yeah yeah I had a couple of hours to get over it. I did read the other letters." He took his hand away and looked at the naked anxiety in his best friend's face. He really was panicking. He really was afraid that he'd just shot down what they'd rebuilt. "Oh, come here."

"You're not upset?"

"Of course I'm upset, I told you, I'm over it. Sherlock, it's nothing I haven't told **myself** , fifty thousand times since Bart's. I blamed my therapist for suggesting it and I blamed myself for writing it. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and god, didn't I prove that one out?"

"John, I know you couldn't have known..."

"Come here and shut up about it," John sighed, tugging Sherlock up onto the bed. Sherlock obeyed and let John pet him into believing that he _hadn't_ managed to destroy their friendship after all. He snuggled into the other man with a sigh of relief, then felt John push him around like a pillow until he had his head tucked under Sherlock's chin, hand resting on his chest just below Sherlock's heart. "W's my laptop still logged into th'pr'xy?"

"Yes. That's why I used it."

"'kay. S'why I left it."

"Download speed sucks, though."

"Mm."

A cozy silence fell and Sherlock laid his hand lightly over John's, whose fingers lifted to slide along his own. He tangled his fingers briefly with John's, light glinting off his ring, and felt John's fingertips slide along the smooth metal. John's fingers were rougher than they looked - the cuticles cracked, knuckles reddened and roughened, the sides of his fingers rough and peeling, from the frequent washing, sanitiser and neoprene gloves John wore at the clinic. He felt John similarly exploring Sherlock's fingertips, still calloused at the tips from years of playing the violin. He felt along each of Sherlock's many scars - scalpel cuts, needle pokes, slashes, scrapes, each one lightly caressed, rubbed thoughtfully, the possibilities of its origin speculated. They clasped fingers briefly then Sherlock turned John's hand palm up, to press the muscle gently, feeling the strength in his hands. His cheeks felt warm. This was by far the most intensely intimate physical contact he'd ever had with someone. And it was John. 

"So......" John's voice cut across the quiet, "Speaking of sucking... About that night on the train...?"

Sherlock blinked. Twice. "...That was one hell of a segue, John." They both broke up in giggles. "Also quite inaccurate. Is your memory going?"

"Sorry, couldn't resist."

When the giggling had settled down again, Sherlock said, "What about it?"

"What was different about it?"

"What do you mean?"

"I remember you'd said it wasn't different **enough** , so it must have been different somehow."

"Oh." Sherlock turned his hand and threaded his fingers through John's, "Well...yes. It was."

"So?"

Sherlock was silent for so long, John thought he wasn't going to answer. And he was blushing. And chewing his lip nervously. Finally he admitted, "Well for one thing, I stayed hard."

John blinked twice then ducked his head against Sherlock's chest and started giggling. "Um, yeah," he said, "I wasn't sure I'd keep it up either."

"What, you?"

"Well I've only been into girls, alright? I mean, I know _I'm_ into you, but I wasn't sure if the rest of me was, if you get my drift."

"Mm-hmm. ...Is that why you're not taking it personally?"

John shrugged and considered that. "Actually, I kind of figured we'd be in the same boat about that. I mean, I'd never slept with a bloke before and you'd already said you'd never gotten into it with anyone, so ... well that's why it was an experiment, right? Experiments fail sometimes, so if it just didn't fly... And you just.. you sounded so _disappointed_..."

"Did I?"

"When you'd said it wasn't different enough? - oh yeah. And you'd pounced me when I first offered, so I could sort of tell you wanted it to be different." 

Sherlock snerked and kissed John's hair, "Excellent deduction." He sighed and traced his fingers down the side of John's thumb. "You kiss better."

"That's a plus."

"And you have nice hands." A gentle stroke along the vein on the back of John's hand underscored the statement. "I like this."

"What, holding hands and cuddling?"

"Mm-hmm."

They linked their fingers together again and John smiled, "I like it too." They kissed lightly, slowly, and when they parted, Sherlock had that soft delicate smile that John suspected had never graced his face before he came into the detective's life. "So, you come back to Baker Street, we fall into a life of snogs and snuggles and holding hands? I could do that."

Sherlock was silent for too long. "Why do I even want to go home, John?" he whispered sadly, "Why do I want to return to a place where people call me names and are stupid and behave like such morons? What's there for me?"

"Uh, me?"

Sherlock Looked at him, "You said you'd come with me if I didn't go back."

"I did, and I will."

"Right, so you don't count."

"Gee, thanks."

" **As a factor** , John!"

"I know, I'm just teasing," John snugged him, "Well, if you don't want to go home..."

"I never said I didn't want to go home."

"You just said.."

"I just said **why** do I want to go home. There's no logic in it, given I'd have to deal with idiots like Anderson and Donovan again and the whole bloody country thinks I'm a fraud."

"Ah right, sorry, that was me misunderstanding," John nodded. He sighed. "Afraid I don't have answer for that, either. But if you decide it's not worth it, I'm tied to you, not to England." They lay in silence a few minutes longer then John looked up at the clock, "Restaurant'll be open if you want to grab some nosh?"

"Nngh. Let's do room service instead. I want to try another experiment."

* * * *

John buttoned his shirt, unable to keep the goofy grin off his face. He kept glancing at Sherlock, who kept glancing back with that little smile. It still wasn't "different enough" but a lot of that had to do with Sherlock's sensory sensitivities and lethargic libido in general; he insisted that John's touch was by far the most tolerable and the most desired. 

The message bar on John's laptop was flashing, indicating a video call. "Ah, Doctor, what a surprise! Have you called to surrender that darling hacker?" Sherlock grinned.

"Not even if you pried her from our cold, dead hands!" laughed a voice that sounded younger. John peered around and was slightly surprised to see that the speaker was actually around the same age as Sherlock.

"My best friend," Sherlock said, indicating John. 

"Oh, is this..?"

"Nope, can't be, he's back in England," Sherlock said but his head dipped a brief nod, "This is Ted Anders, I met him on holiday in Norway. Ted, this is one of my American contacts, he's with the FBI and he's a genius. We'd stalemate at chess until we decided it was more interesting to cheat."

"Nice to finally meet you," the young man waved. 

"What brings you to call?"

"We just had an interesting development on Morris James - turns out he's been dead for quite a while. His body was found two weeks ago and ID was just confirmed."

"What?? Damn! So someone completely different is calling the shots and we're back at nothing," Sherlock slammed his fist in frustration. 

"It's looking that way," the young man agreed, "We're still looking into the sister possibility but so far coming up empty."

"What about a wife? Husband?" John suggested, "I know it's a long shot but it might be worth considering."

"Good idea. We'll look into that. We'll call you again when we have something."

"Thanks," Sherlock said and quit the call. He closed the laptop with a frustrated sigh and steepled his fingers. 

"You're certain it's still just one single operator? Not an organization or a conglomerate?" John said. 

Sherlock nodded, "All the evidence points that way, just about everyone is agreed. If we are dealing with a conglomerate, it's an exceptionally uniform one."

"Still the 'consulting criminal' thing?"

"Not just consulting now, directing as well, but not in an obvious way."

"When did that take up, do you think?"

Sherlock frowned, then the frown took on a puzzled edge. Then he reached for his phone. "Hello again, look, when abouts did Morris die, do you have an estimate? .... Really. You're certain? Because my dear Doctor just pointed out that the escalation to directing happened at about the same time. Right, so what are the odds that whomever killed Morris took over his game? Exactly. Good, talk to you later then." He quit the call and smiled, "John, you're brilliant."

"Not that brilliant, you're no closer to figuring out who took it over."

"No," Sherlock steepled his fingers again and tapped them against his lips, "But I think you're right, it's still in the family."

* * * *

_"D'you want to do the dinosaur museum today?"_

Frankly, John had been expecting that question days ago but Sherlock had _really_ needed the downtime. Now they stood in the admission queue, water dripping off their coats. First he'd arrived in a blizzard, then it was sunshine, then an almighty wind, now it was pissing down rain. Cold, blattery rain, not even a nice spring rain. 

The drive had been entertaining, at least. John had rolled down the window and that was a mistake. This was an agricultural province. It was an agricultural province with a late spring and a long thaw period before any green came up, so the farmers manured their fields early and let it compost until they could plow. And many of them kept cattle, so there was a lot of manure to compost It took twenty minutes with the fan on to clear the stench fully from the car. They'd had to turn it to recirc when they realized that the fan intake was just drawing in more of the awful odour. They were beginning to see why this was considered to be the off-season.

Now he braced himself to face the crowds in the museum. Even though it was the off-season, even though it was the middle of day in the middle of the week, it was still crowded. He shook the water off his coat and went through. 

They made it as far as the Devonian Reef diorama when his phone rang. "Mycroft," he told John with a little grin, "I imagine he just saw the credit charge."

"Uh oh. ...Are we in trouble?"

Sherlock grinned a little wider and thumbed the phone, "Brother dear! How nice to hear from you! Guess where **we** are!"

John bit his fist when the plummy voice howled, "You utter, utter tosser!!"

"Whatever do you mean?"

"You **know** I've been wanting to go there!"

"And how is it my fault that you never take a holiday?" Sherlock's tone was sweet and syrupy as caramel and his grin was malicious, "I assure you, dear brother, I'm as surprised as you, John just sprang it on me this morning!" 

John bit his fist harder, trying not to laugh. "Let me guess, he loves dinosaurs?" he whispered. Sherlock nodded, smirking.

"John's a tosser too!"

"Now now, how was he to know?" Mycroft muttered something John couldn't hear. "Now that's ridiculous, Mummy and Daddy had been married a long time by the time they had me." John burst out laughing. "Really brother, the way you're carrying on, you'd almost think you didn't **want** me to switch to video-call." He touched the phone screen, chuckling, and was rewarded by Mycroft's scowl. 

"Hi," John waved, "Sorry, if I'd known you like dinosaurs, I really would have asked you along. Really, I had no idea."

"Quite alright," Mycroft fumed. 

"Now hang on, let me switch to the back camera, this is excellent, not sure if I can fit it all in..." Sherlock pressed against the wall, aiming his phone's camera, "Seriously, pictures just do not do this justice."

After that, John just tagged along after Sherlock as he fairly bounced through the exhibits, chattering to his brother. He'd heard Sherlock chatter before, but it was the first time he'd ever heard _Mycroft_ enthusing in just the same way. At one point he fended people off as Sherlock lay on the floor, trying to get in a shot of the pliesiosaur skeleton suspended overhead, finally settling for a slow pan down the length of it. He wandered off by himself several times as Sherlock, true to prediction, stayed stuck to the window overlooking the bone lab. Once he came back to find Sherlock **in** the bone lab, holding the phone up for Mycroft to see what the technicians were doing. He grinned down at his friend then wandered off again, knowing there was no prying Sherlock away now. He was on his own for a bit.

Hours later, he was watching an interpretation video when he heard a shout of "Oh bugger, I've lost John again! Hang on, I think I left him at the KT Line." He put his hand over his face and laughed. He should feel offended to have been forgotten - but he just wasn't. He'd brought Sherlock here to have fun and he was certainly having fun. Moreover, he was having fun with _his brother_ , which was nothing short of a miracle in his experience of the pair. Besides... He glanced at his phone again, looking at the text from Mycroft he'd received in the dinosaur hall - _"I believe my brother has been replaced by a pod person. What have you done to him?"_ Nor had he _really_ been forgotten - Sherlock had bounced back to find John several times over the course of the day, even once grabbing his hand and dragging him off to whatever exhibit had captured their excitement this time. No, he couldn't feel offended, not when his plan had been such a smashing success. 

Sherlock finally rang off just before the gift shop, whereupon he loaded John's arms with souvenirs. "How much can you take back to London?"

"He's going to know," John laughed, "He'll see it on the credit charges."

"Alright, but he won't know _what_ , will he?"

"A t-shirt? Is he the t-shirt wearing type?"

"He'll pin it to the wall of his study."

John picked up the little puzzle model of a T. rex skeleton, "Bet this ends up on a bookshelf in his office."

"In his study," Sherlock corrected, "He never personalises his office." John just shook his head and grinned. 

It was late in the evening when they finally returned to the cabin and Sherlock was still wired. John made him some chamomile tea and gave him his violin and let him play while he packed up the souvenirs for Mycroft. Then he powered up his laptop. "Sherlock, message for you. Your American friends."

"Hm?" Sherlock put the violin down. He read the message then glanced at the clock and frowned, then opened a video call. 

"Thank you for calling Delphi, the Pythia will hear you now."

"Still haven't reconsidered my offer?"

"I would but sweetheart, the rain makes my mascara run!" They laughed, and the chirpy girl got down to business, "Okay, I checked all of Morris James's known aliases and hit paydirt. Your Dear Doctor nailed it, Morris James was married under the name of Myles Abernathy, **and** it took place about six months after the death of Arthur James. He married a woman called Sonya Matheson."

"As ever, you are brilliant. Both of you," Sherlock grinned.

"But wait, there's more! I ran a facial recognition scan on Sonya Matheson through every intelligence database available to me and sweetie, that is a lot, but not nearly as a-lot as what came back." Sherlock felt his scalp start to crawl. They stared in shock as the images came up, one after another, all differing in small details but all the same face. 

" **Fuck me** , it's **_her!!_** " John exploded. Sherlock's head sunk into his hands. "It's bloody well **_her!_** **She's** the one who's taken over Moriarty's reins? **She's** the one pulling the strings now? Bloody _Irene Adler?_ Bloody, bloody hell..."

Then a glass shattered against the wall. **_"FUCK!!"_**

John stared; he could count the number of times he'd heard Sherlock Holmes cuss on one hand and still have fingers left over. Glass after glass shattered as Sherlock hurled them, his face black with rage... and something else. John spun the laptop to face him, "Thanks, luv, you've been marvellous, can we call you back, I think he's a trifle upset." He slammed the laptop shut and dived just in time to rescue the violin. **_"Sherlock!!"_**

Sherlock spun himself into a chair and yanked his hair in fistfuls. He buried his face in his hands for several moments. "This is my fault," he whispered finally. 

"Don't be silly," John chided him. He went looking for a broom. "I guess the witness-protection story was true after all, or something like it. Mycroft told me she'd been killed in the Middle East."

"...no..."

"Well, obviously she faked her death again."

"...yes..."

"So how is that in any way your fault?" but even as he said it, John knew, "...Oh _god_ , Sherlock!"

"Don't tell Mycroft, _please_ don't tell Mycroft," Sherlock begged. 

"That you helped her fake her death a second time? And well enough to fool him, apparently." Sherlock nodded and John shook his head. "The road to hell really is paved with good intentions, isn't it Sherlock." He went up to his friend and laid his hand on his shoulder, "Alright. But after this, we never, **ever** mention my bloody blog again!"

"Agreed."


	5. Chercher La Femme

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The speculative chapter. Mycroft reveals a few skeletons in the family closet. Sherlock meets Moriarty's successor, who makes him an offer he shouldn't refuse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings include triggers for reproductive coersion, marital rape, allistic privilege, sexism, nudity, and _Caramelldansen_

He was a dark and stormy sight. His assistant actually took a step back, upon seeing Mycroft's brooding expression. "You sent for me, sir?" Wordless, he handed her a slip of paper. "Sir?"

"A contingency plan," he said. Abruptly he rose and grabbed his coat and umbrella, "I will be going out."

"Very good, sir."

* * * *

It was drizzling by the time he reached Baker Street. In the time since the loss of his brother and the addition of Mrs. Watson, 221b had become what most people would consider a cozy, inviting little place, in which the bullet-pocked smiley intruded with its cheeky surreality. Despite his infrequent visits and the annoying witter of the landlady, Mycroft had felt relatively comfortable in 221b. The numerous experiments spoke of a haven of scientific inquiry, the clutter spoke of active lives getting into the more interesting type of trouble, and of course, the smiley, mute testimony to how happy his brother had felt, living here. 

"To be honest, I kind of miss the experiments," John said as he sat down, "Now I open the fridge and all I have to look forward to is potato salad."

"I can see how miscellaneous body parts would be preferable," Mycroft nodded sagely. 

"Mary'll be back in a while."

"You're certain that it's her?"

"Irene? No, but she's the most likely candidate at this point. And as Sherlock pointed out, she _did_ contact Moriarty first."

"And... what was my brother's reaction to this information?"

John thought about the narrow escape of the violin. "He was a tad upset."

Mycroft smirked mirthlessly, "More than just a tad, I imagine, given the strength of his attraction for her."

John shook his head, "That's just the thing, I think we've got hold of the wrong end of the stick, here. I don't deny he's got strong feelings for her, but I don't think that's what's driving them. I can't shake the feeling that it's got something to do with your mother."

Mycroft arched an eyebrow, "You believe his attraction for her is Oedipal?"

"No, because I don't think that he's attracted to her. I think she was attracted to him, though."

"She was."

"Right. And he's jilted her twice that I know of."

Mycroft blinked, "Twice?"

"That I know of. And, as I pointed out once before, he never answered any of her texts. He **always** answers a text. She disappointed him, I got that much out of him. She saw him as someone to beat, one way or the other."

"Unsurprising, given her choice of career."

"Right, and since he wouldn't meet her on her territory, she's gone to meet him on his. Taking over Moriarty's place, she gets to watch him work, make him dance and chase strings and all the while he doesn't know it's her. And it doesn't matter if he breaks up one contact cell, she can just create more. She'd _want_ to create more because then she can watch him work some more."

Mycroft nodded - that much made sense, unfortunately. But - "Why begin directing operations?" 

"I don't know, that part doesn't fit, does it? If all she wants is to watch him work and gloat because she's the one making him do it? There's something else missing."

Mycroft was silent for a few moments. "If Miss Adler truly has taken over Moriarty's place in the underworld, then your analysis of her motives would be reasonable, given how my brother foiled her during their last meeting."

 _That you know about,_ John thought, but remembered his promise to Sherlock. "That'll be another disappointment to him." To Mycroft's arched eyebrow, he continued, "Well, it's so trite, isn't it? Even Moriarty's 'I was bored' was more original than that. You know Sherlock, as soon as it proves to be even the slightest bit ordinary, he loses interest." Mycroft smiled slightly. "...Yes, alright."

Mycroft's smile got a little wider and a little softer, "I must thank you for putting up with my brother's extended video tour of the Royal Tyrrel. It was quite lovely. Most unusual for my brother, however; you've been a good influence on him."

"Actually, I think that was the dopamine."

"Possibly," Mycroft smiled again, "Well, Doctor, since you are so convinced that attraction does not form part of my brother's motivation, how do you believe he will act about Miss Adler?"

"I've no idea," John replied, "I really don't know. You don't either?"

Mycroft shook his head, "Only Mummy was able to explain Sherlock's motivations. I can tell you _what_ he is likely to do, Doctor, but I cannot tell you _why_ , I cannot tell you what he's thinking or experiencing, what's driving his actions. Mummy could, she was the only one who truly understood him that way. When she died, I lost that translation."

"Your mother keeps coming up, over and over again," John said thoughtfully, "In conversation, in his letters... I asked him about her on this last trip, he said when he was a kid, he couldn't wait to grow up so he could be her best friend. That's standing out to me, somehow."

Mycroft had his hand folded back over his mouth, staring at the floor with a pained expression. "He said that?" he said finally, "He saw that." He was silent a few moments more. "He might even have done it, too. If anyone could have made that kind of paradigm shift..." He linked his fingers together and pressed them against his lips, thinking. "As only Mummy seemed to understand Sherlock, so Sherlock seemed to be the only one to understand Mummy. They were very much alike and seemed to feel things the same way. She was always able to circumnavigate his tantrums. Likewise, when Mummy would have one of her meltdowns, Sherlock was always able to get through to her, calm her down and draw her back out, all without saying a word. Which is interesting, as they had their own language, after a fashion. Mummy spoke several languages and quite often they would cycle through them as they talked, to the great annoyance of everyone around them."

"Oh yes, Sherlock told me about that, once," John nodded, "He said everyone thought they did it deliberately but that it was really just the way her brain worked. He said her brain often mistranslated what she was hearing, it'd get the meaning right but would convert it into the wrong language, and she'd respond in the language that she was hearing. He said he learned those languages just to keep the flow of conversation going."

Mycroft blinked slowly. "Is that what it was? We thought they were being obtuse. I never realized she might have had something like that."

"Central auditory processing issues," John shrugged, "Well documented nowadays, not so well known back then. It's to do with how the brain sorts out the incoming soundwaves and differentiates them. Sometimes, the brain can have trouble detangling them. It's neurological, not a sign of insanity or anything."

"I never realized," Mycroft said again, looking troubled and thoughtful. "You might be right, Doctor Watson. You might well be right. A brilliant woman, her genius overlooked and undervalued, in a life of..... Yes, I can see it now." 

"'All their lives, they had no value as themselves, their only worth was sex and the only control they has over their lives was when to end it,'" John remembered, "He was talking about the girls in Bangkok but was he speaking of his mother?" Mycroft rubbed his forehead and nodded. "He started using after she died, right?"

"Yes."

"Because the one person who understood him and made sense to him was gone. He couldn't be her friend and he couldn't save her." Mycroft nodded again. "Why? What happened? Why would he say something like what he said about the Bangkok girls, in the context of his mother? Why would she be kept apart from him and punished? And how does it tie in with Irene Adler?"

Mycroft passed a hand down his face. "You must understand, this is very difficult to talk about. Also very shaming. We were simply too young to understand what was happening, and too naive to question what had been told to us for too long."

"Wish I could say I'm surprised," John said with a sympathy, "Fact is, you boys are the most fucked-up people I've ever met, and that's saying something after the army. With what Sherlock's already mentioned, I've gathered that your family wasn't exactly the Brady Bunch."

"Ha! - certainly not."

"Your father was an inventor, wasn't he?"

"Ah.... no," Mycroft's smile turned into something rather nasty, "Sigurd Holmes was a genius at marketting, manipulation, intrigue, lying and political wrangling. He could sell you your own soul if he wouldn't prefer to steal it; he was also an intellectual property thief. No, Doctor, most of the inventions, patents and marvels attributed to the Holmes family were in fact products of the genius of Atalanta Holmes. Father took all the credit. I have spent the better part of a decade quietly correcting the attributions on the patents, but unfortunately, public knowledge is much harder to correct."

"So, a girl genius and her work was stolen. When did she get married?"

"She was seventeen at the time of her wedding. Father was eight years her senior but she had her parents' consent." Mycroft leaned forward and confided, "I have reason to believe she may have been coerced into accepting the marriage. The Holmes family were well placed and influential, Sigurd Holmes was quite brilliant, and the Delacroixes had an equally brilliant daughter to offer. However, I also believe they wanted to be rid of her. They appear to have considered her to be quite deeply flawed."

"Why?"

"She didn't fit in, of course. As I said, she was quite like Sherlock. The Delacroixes were utterly unlike her, quite ordinary people, with minds as plain as hers was scintillating. She liked to be alone, buried in her books or in her workshop. She wasn't good at conversation and had no patience for small-talk anyways, given she had nothing in common with her peers - where they were into lipstick and boyfriends, she was learning languages and mechanical physics and mucking about with soldering irons and computers. As such, her parents were quite critical of her. I used to hide on the stair and listen to the grown-ups talk -- I can't say I ever heard a good word from them about her. Too quiet, too unfriendly, too cold, too clumsy, too bookish, too boyish, too explosive, too smart -- quite unmarriageable, in their estimation. Father was affluent and I believe they considered her to be a good match for him. From a eugenics standpoint, the match was ideal - they did, of course, produce geniuses. From a personality standpoint, they could not have been more wrong."

"Why's that?"

"You are familiar with the Atalanta of myth? Mummy lived up to her name in many ways. It is quite an irony that the Delacroixes would give her that name then expect her to grow up as a typical girl. Well, she was not. And Father came from a conservative family and had significant... control issues. He did not find her at all satisfactory as a wife."

"He beat her?"

"Not to my knowledge. Father was never physical, but there are other methods of violence."

John nodded; he was all too familiar with that. "Sherlock told me she'd been deemed unsuitable as a mother as well?"

Another hollow smile, "Indeed. Again, from eavesdropping on the adults, I learned that she had absorbed herself fully in my care. Sigurd and their parents felt that she was paying too much attention to me and not enough to her marriage. It was decided that Mrs. Nesbitt, our nanny, be hired to take over." He was aware of John staring at him. "For most of my childhood, Mummy was quite distant. I thought it was my fault but much later came to understand that she had, in fact, been quite strongly discouraged from interacting with me. Quite possibly she was coerced into believing it was for my own good. By the time Sherlock was born, she had withdrawn almost completely into her workshop. This, of course, did not meet with the approval of her husband or their parents."

"Was she often depressed? Major depression, I mean?" 

"I have every reason to believe so, yes."

"Alright, then, if they were both unhappy, why stay in the marriage?"

"Father had control issues, as I mentioned. As for Mummy, where would she have gone? Her family were quite unsympathetic and she had, as already inferred, no friends."

"Alright. But if they thought she was an unsuitable mother, why did she have another child, seven years later?"

Again Mycroft passed his hand over his face, looking very uncomfortable. "I have reason to suspect that it wasn't her idea," he said at last, "I eavesdropped on the grown-ups quite a lot when I was a child, and I was very young at the time I heard my grandparents discussing Mummy's withdrawal. They remembered she perked up when she had a baby, so they thought 'Oh give her another baby.' And at the time, the law gave Father every right to do so."

John stared at him, then passed his hand over his eyes, "Good god."

"I have _never_ broached this subject with my brother, you understand."

"I should think not! And it... that must cast some uncomfortable doubts for you as well."

"Indeed it does," Mycroft said sadly, "So you see, Doctor Watson, my mother's sole value to the family lay in her ability to give heirs."

"And ideas to be stolen."

"Yes."

John digested that for some time. "People like to think this kind of crap happens only in places like Afghanistan," he muttered. "You said they took you away from her. You said you thought it was your fault."

"I was very young at the time. I overheard the grown-ups telling each other that Mummy was too self-absorbed and not motherly enough. I must admit, what little time I got to spend with her, I found her quite engaging. Much more so once Sherlock came along and began his dogged pursuit of her."

"Why would they do that? Why keep a mother away from her sons?"

"They believed she was dangerous to us."

"How? What did she do?"

"Encouraged us," Mycroft smiled, "She encouraged our curiosity and our desire to learn. We would hide out in her workshop or in the treehouse and she would encourage our experiments or show us how to make things. She always encouraged us to try things, even if they resulted in injury - 'There's only one way to find out' was a phrase often on her lips. Such lack of maternal concern for our safety was deemed evidence of her unsuitability, nevermind that she always had the first aid kit handy." John snorted. "Of course, when we did something ill-conceived, the phrase would be 'Did we learn a little lesson?'" Mycroft chuckled in reminiscence, "'Think it through' was another of her phrases; I'm sure you're quite familiar with that one." John nodded, grinning. "She taught us to think," Mycroft continued, sadder.

"Think? What, like...the mind palace?"

"She had some sympathetic teachers in school, who taught her many techniques, including that one. She taught us to expand our thoughts and how to look at things from many perspectives. When our talents began to emerge, she focused in on them and encouraged us in our specialties, as she had developed her own. A highly visual thinker, our mother; the development of most inventions normally requires a considerable amount of trial and error, but Mummy seldom needed to refine a design more than thrice, because she could see it all in her mind. We get that from her. Once she understood what it was that we were seeing, she helped us to develop ourselves, and you are familiar with the results."

John shook his head, "And.. they thought this was _bad?_ "

"Oh yes. Father felt we should be learning the ways of society. They felt we needed sport and socialisation; of course you know that both of us prefer solitude, a fact that Mummy understood all too well. When we would misbehave, Mrs. Nesbitt would send us to our rooms, which of course was what we wanted all along. Given our father's example lessons in manipulation, you can see where that went." He smiled at John's chuckles. "Mummy's notion of punishment, on the other hand, was to kick us out of doors." The chuckles turned to laughter. "Mummy was determined to subvert us from Father's plan, and of course, we were only too eager to be subverted."

"Yes, Sherlock told me **you** were the one who figured out that sanding the coating off of Rockets made them look just like the nanny's medication," John grinned wickedly.

Mycroft shrugged and smiled, unapologetic, "Mummy called Mrs. Nesbitt 'the wittering idiot' and used her as a special form of punishment on me because I loathed the prattling fool so much. Could never concentrate with her nattering away, the woman had to externalise her entire thought process, which was mostly taken up by _Coronation Street._ Mummy was much more interesting and after Sherlock had his cutting board taken away, we found other means."

John finished laughing and wiped his eyes. Finally he sobered, "What happened? At the end?"

Mycroft sighed, "Sherlock had just gone off to university, Father had died, I was already out establishing my career... There is a river near our home, and a bridge. Mummy used to go for walks along it and lean out over the bridge, watching the water. Sherlock sent me messages indicating he felt she was going out there rather more than he was comfortable with. Then just before finals, she disappeared." He wiped his face again, not looking at John, "There was no note and the house was stocked, one lamp had been left on, her book was still open, the workshop set up for a new project, her computer was still on... We have no idea what happened. We never found her body."

"Foul play, perhaps?" John asked.

"We don't know. Sherlock did suggest perhaps she had been abducted by aliens, he bet me twenty quid on that." John chuckled and Mycroft shook his head, "I confess to keeping a faint hope that she just... left. That perhaps she is out in the world with a new life, a new name, perhaps enjoying the happiness that she was denied here. Unfortunately, I fear we'll never know." 

The silence stretched out. Finally Mycroft smiled thinly, "Well then, Doctor Watson, how does my little tale of woe assist your analysis of my brother?"

"He didn't have a crush on her, he saw echos of his Mum," John said after a few more moments' thought, "And he'll hear her out and maybe try to help her again, but not for the reasons she'll think it is, because she _does_ have a crush on him and she can't see him as anything other than a man to beat, one way or another. And she'll keep macking on him because it's what she knows and in her life, men only want one thing, so she won't see the olive branch for what it is. She sees him as a conquest, she wants to be 'the woman who popped Sherlock Holmes.' She can't see him as a friend, and that's where it's going to go wrong, because he likes her but he'll keep jilting her."

"You sound certain of that."

"I am," John looked up, "Back in Oslo, he told me, 'It'd be just like me and Mycroft, it'd be an endless competition' and he's right. Look at this whole situation - if we're right about Adler's motives, then he's got it dead to rights. He saw that ages ago and refused to fall into it then; there's no way he'll fall into it now."

"Very interesting."

"And... I think I've just figured out the detective angle too."

"I'm sorry?"

"When you told me she'd been killed, you asked me what I could deduce about Sherlock's heart, that he chose to go into detective work. I think I've figured it out. I've been talking to people and getting a better idea of how his mind works, he's very concrete about things. When there's a problem, he doesn't fuss about it, he just.. deals with the problem, makes it go away. It's the same with how he cares. He cares a lot more than he lets on but I'm guessing that's your father's influence, wasn't it. Big boys weren't allowed to do a heck of a lot more than just cry, they weren't allowed to do anything, am I right?" Mycroft nodded slowly. "So, he doesn't show it or say it, he just.. does things. Like jumping off of tall buildings or putting everything at risk by switching to video phone so he could lie on the floor and pan down a pliesiosaur. Most people say it with flowers, Sherlock says it by stealing ashtrays out of Buckingham Palace."

"I never told them where that went," Mycroft murmured. 

"So, you'll never know what happened with your mother. Not even his deductive skill can find the answer to that, but he can find answers for other people. Other people can have closure because of him. And when there's a problem, like a serial killer, he can make it go away."

Mycroft smirked thinly, "Quite astute, Doctor, but I think you might find yourself off in a couple of areas."

"No, because I was talking to Molly about her job one day. She said it was one of the worst types of jobs to have because of the way people respond to you. People say you should enjoy your job and take pride in your work, but if you enjoy your work in mortuary or take pride in a job well done, people think you ghoulish. But she can't **not** take pride in her work, she's very good at it. It took me a while to understand that it's the same with Sherlock. ...And it's the same with me."

"How so?"

John stared off into the middle distance, not looking at Mycroft as he spoke, "Nobody understood why I wanted to be a doctor in the military. Nobody understands why I wasn't glad to be discharged, why I'm not happy in civilian clinic, why I'd want to be gallivanting around crime scenes. I've seen enough trouble for three lifetimes, why on earth would I want to see more? Because I'm good at it, it's what I'm meant to do, and when I get it right, my whole existance is justified. That's why we got on so well. That's why we clicked, right from the start. We were called for the same purpose. He found a fit between what he's good at and what he can do to heal the hurt left by the unanswerable questions. Even when a case bored him, I'd never known him not to give Lestrade an answer."

Mycroft smiled a little, "Even when the case involved a stolen cheese lorry?"

"They never did find the cheese."

* * * *

The wind rattled the window panes and howled over the chimney. The fire had long ago burned down and the embers weren't enough to take the chill off the room. He took another look at the swirling snow, then drew the curtain closed. The chalet reminded him a little of the cabin that John had taken him to, so long ago. Well, vaguely - it was colder, draughtier and hadn't nearly as much charm. It would be another few days yet before he would leave to meet with yet another cell of Mrs. Jones's extensive family _How can one woman have so many relatives?_ Until then, he was alone.

This was the worst of times, the darkest part of the year, when it was hard to fight the cravings: Yet another Christmas without John. One fortnight to go before Christmas Eve. John would have the flat decked out. There would be an open-house party. There would be Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade and Molly (although he could do without remembering _that_ fiasco) Heck, there would even be Mycroft. 

A few hours ago, John had uploaded Crystal Castles' cover of _Not In Love_ and he'd responded with 54-40's _Love You All._ Then _Ocean Pearl._ Then _Miss You._ Apparently 54-40 was doing a good job of expressing his mood this evening. John had replied with _Caramelldansen_ and he'd nearly thrown the player across the room, laughing. He uploaded _My Kinda Lover_ by Billy Squier and grinned when John replied with _Rock Me Tonight._ Then he uploaded Snow Patrol's _Chasing Cars_ and went to bed. 

_The snow swirled down white feathers on the black of his coat tangling in the sandy hair of the man beside him  
Blood on the snow  
"Obvious"  
"Sherlock"  
Blood on the snow and on the gloved fingers of the man who knelt to inspect it, "Check for an accountant. Check for a trophy wife."  
Brilliant. Amazing. His genius goes... out. Or something. I don't know.   
Then John looked up at him and smiled  
"Sherlock"  
And took his hand_

He swam through the fuzzy cotton of sleep towards waking. Still swaddled in the thick feather quilts. _something's wrong_ A warm body spooned against his back. Fingers linked through his, a thumb currently tracing one of the scars across his knuckles. _something's wrong_ _John? You found me?_ He lifted a finger to trace lightly over the nails of the hand entwined with his own. And knew immediately something was wrong. 

"Oh it's _you,_ " he said sourly. 

"Well don't sound so disappointed," the voice behind him chuckled, "Is that any way to greet an old friend?"

"Is that what we are?"

"Aren't we?"

"After taking over Moriarty's consulting business, I don't think so." He turned over to scowl at her, "What the hell, Irene?"

She dimpled at him impishly, "Would you believe, I was bored?" The scowl stayed. "Well, I couldn't go back to my old career, could I? Much as I might like to." She snuggled against him then frowned when she felt something... not the fuzzy she was expecting. 

"That's mine!" he snapped, snatching the teddy bear away from her and shoving it beneath his pillow. 

She giggled, "And how is John Watson?"

"You tell me. I'm sure you have more recent information than I do."

She shrugged, "Sorry to tell you... He appears to have moved on with his life. Got himself a lovely little wife and steady job, now he's all settled down."

He looked away. "...Good for him. About time he got on with it."

"It hurts you. I **am** sorry. He seemed like he was good for you."

" **Why** are you here?"

She smiled coyly, "I heard that you were looking for me so I decided to be found." She shifted, slithering on top of him and settling on his hips. Which is when he realized she wasn't wearing any clothes. "And you shouldn't be alone so close to Christmas," she whispered.

Her lips covered his, light and moist as snowfall, kissing him leisurely while her fingers slipped down his chest to twirl about one nipple. For several minutes he lay quite still, not responding. Then, finally, she felt his lips part against hers.. "Will you fnease snop nat? It noesn't feel at all pheasant."

She jerked back and stared at him, "...What?"

"That!" Sherlock said, pushing her hand away, "It's most irritating. I don't like it. And get off me!"

"Get you off? I'd like that."

He rolled his eyes, "You know that's not what I said. Get off of me, I don't have a bedpan."

"Oh alright," Irene huffed, rolling off and flopping onto the bed. "And who wears flannel pajamas these days?"

"I do. I get night sweats and they wake me up. The pajamas absorb the sweat and I don't wake up from being too hot or too cold." He left Irene with that and disappeared into the bathroom. 

A few minutes later she heard the shower start and got a wicked little grin. "Well you're a Moriarty now, alright. Jim didn't learn to knock, either," Sherlock said, annoyed.

She smiled and stepped into the shower with him, "Tch. Sauce. I came to scrub your back."

"No, I highly doubt that you would go to all the trouble of finding me just to scrub my back," he said, ducking his head under the water, "Why are you here, Irene?"

"To warn you off, of course," she smiled, handing him the shampoo, "My associates do find your persistence annoying and would like to do away with you. I'm here to offer an alternative."

"Which is?"

"To send you off on wild goose chases," Irene replied, "Lots of puzzles to keep that marvellous mind of yours active, but out of the way of my immediate connections."

"And if I refuse?" he said, rinsing the foam off, "I'm already dead."

"Only in name. This lovely body of yours is quite alive. Am I the first to see it?"

He rolled his eyes as she turned him around, "I'm afraid Buckingham Palace beat you to it."

"Really? Hmm, I'm sure there's a story in that," she purred and started to scrub his back as promised, "Do take the offer, Sherlock, it's really for the best. We know how to force your compliance of course, but I'd like not to have to do that."

He snorted then turned to rinse the foam off. She smiled and chewed her lip as her eyes followed its journey down his pale flesh. _"It'd be just like me and Mycroft. It'd be an endless competition."_ He stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel, "Why marry Morris?"

She shrugged, "He offered me sanctuary, after Arthur killed you. You had my phone, after all. After that, I couldn't be certain of its safety. It was a mutually beneficial marriage; I got safety and he got further connections."

"Then why kill him?"

"He was the first to work out that you had faked your death and he wanted to finish the job. I couldn't let that happen."

"So you killed him then took over his operations for the challenges it brought. Why escalate to directing them?"

She smiled coyly, "I have my reasons."

"You have a partner," he corrected, towelling his hair, "Whom you want to please. You're indulging them."

"Oooooo, that lovely mind of yours," she cooed. She sauntered over and took the towel from him, dropping it on the floor. "Tell me something," she said, looping her hands around his waist, "Did you ever have your way with that adorable little teddy bear man of yours?"

_John, giggling against his chest, looking up at him with an adorably sheepish expression and admitting, "Actually, yeah, I wasn't sure I could keep a hard-on either."_

Sherlock blew out his breath in a loud sigh, "We're back to that again? Just when I thought we were finally getting somewhere."

"No? Such a pity. You really should have, he was so delightfully devoted to you." _"Well, **yes** , John, because generally anything that goes down your throat is supposed to be well chewed up first." "Oh god, **why** did you have to phrase it like that?" And they'd laughed so much._ "So wonderfully... domesticated."

_"You did just kill a man." "True. ...But he wasn't a very nice man."  
"I haven't pulled rank in ages." "Enjoy it?" "Oh yeah...."  
"I often hear 'punch me in the mouth' when you talk but it's usually subtext."  
"Well, it's anti-inflammatories for me, my wrist is shot. You don't take half of forever to come, do you?" "Um, John, actually... that was pretty fast."  
John was so different._

Irene reached out and took his hand, gathering it between her own, bringing it up to kiss his fingertips. "So...." _John's hands, the steady hands of a surgeon and a marksman. Hands that could restore life or take it away, with a clean conscience either way. Hands that were strong and supple, tender and roughened, delicate and forceful. Hands that didn't play games. Hands that played for keeps._ "Let's have dinner?"

 _Honest hands._ Sherlock looked up and met her eyes, then leaned forward until his cheek brushed hers and whispered, "I'm not hungry."

* * * *

The laughter and music drifted out from behind the doors of 221b. John was pouring mulled wine into mugs, trying not to splash onto his festive jumper. "Everything's almost in place for our holidays," Mary said as she arranged biscuits on a platter.

Mrs. Hudson smiled, "That's lovely, dear. You and John must love travelling. And it's so nice to meet your family. It must be quite a change for you, John, having your in-laws visiting?"

"Yes, it is," John agreed. He'd put in a request for additional agents, disguised as his in-laws, after receiving Sherlock's message ten days ago - there was no way that 54-40's _Runaway John_ was anything but a blatant warning. They'd been putting plans in place ever since. "I've invited Mycroft around," he told Mary, "He'll probably show up later, after things have wound down some more."

"He's not much for company," Mary nodded, "I'll save some of the pudding for him."

"Poor man, he hasn't got anyone left now," Mrs. Hudson lamented, "What about your sister, John?"

"Taking her gifts over tomorrow, Mrs. Hudson."

"You're a good man, John. No one should be alone for Christmas."

"Just as you say, Mrs. H," John grinned. The bell rang and he looked up at the clock, "That's probably Mycroft now, bit earlier than I expected." He went down to the door and flung it open with a smile, "Hello!--*"

It was Anthea.


	6. He Ain't Heavy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The angst'n'action chapter. Moriarty's successors make their move and it throws Sherlock so far into the darkness, can his conductor of light draw him back out?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings include triggers for violence, some gore, angst and major character trauma.

It was a cold and cloudy day. The snow had already turned to slush, sliding under his feet as he slogged through it, nearly twisting an ankle as he mounted a kerb. He rapped on the door and shivered, stamping the slush off his boots. 

The door opened. "Johnny!!"

"Hullo, Harry," he smiled, "Brought you some Christmas cheer." He kissed his sister and stepped inside.

"You've got good timing, the kettle's just boiled."

"Tea's lovely, yeah." John set the package down on the coffee table and a picture caught his eye. He picked it up, curious, "Is this your new girlfriend?"

"Yes and no - we've been together for a bit but we've known each other since the days when Clara and I would go clubbing."

"That long? Hm. Well, nice to hear you're moving on."

"You too, Johnny," Harry said, coming out with the tea in mugs, "When do I get to meet that pretty wife of yours?"

"Not for a bit yet, I'm afraid, she's jetting off again after the hols. It's her job, you know, keeps her on the move, always travelling. That's how we met, travelling."

"How exciting!" Harry sat down and took the package, "What did you bring me?"

"Hope you like it," John smiled.

She drew out the sexy bunnies salt and pepper shakers and threw back her head, laughing, "Oh my god, Johnny, they're gorgeous! They're absolutely perfect, they'll look appalling on the shelf."

"I thought of you the moment I saw them," he grinned and returned her hug. They chatted a bit, telling her about the clinic work and Mary's jet-setting career destinations. Then he hugged her again and took his leave, promising to call again on New Year's. 

He kept his pleasant expression all the way back to 221b, where he closed the door and leaned against it. _"Shit,"_ he said.

* * * * 

_"*gasp!*_

He'd been expecting it. As soon as Irene had left the chalet, he'd contacted all of his Interpol connections and informed them. They'd gotten him a new secure line but he'd kept the other one, for just this reason. He knew she'd do it again and she had. And he'd expected what the text would say. _Should have stuck to the plan,_ his inner Moriarty cooed, _Should have cut him down. Sentimentality's a weakness, you know. You died and he's still in danger, because you just couldn't let him go._ "Shut up," he told it, and keyed the video.

He hadn't been expecting _this._

He felt his legs turn to butter, felt them collapse out from under him as he stared. _John. No no no no. How? How the hell did they get him, he's so well protected, how did they get to him?_ He scrambled for his media player. _How could they have penetrated his security? Oh god.. John..._ He uploaded Alice in Chains' _Brother_ and Bonnie Tyler's _Total Eclipse of the Heart_ to the media player, then he stared as the video on the phone changed to CCTV footage. _Wait.. who is that? Is that...?_

The new phone rang and he nearly dropped it, seeing the number. "Wh--*"

"It's me."

"John!! Oh god, John...!"

"Sherlock, I know."

"John, _they've got my brother!_ "

"I know, Sherlock. Anthea came to me immediately. We had a suspicion after he was attacked the first time. He had a plan but I didn't think it would be this. Sherlock, listen to me, stay where you are. Do NOT go off half-cocked, do you hear me? Sherlock? Stay where you are, help is on the way. We're already tracing him. Do NOT go off half-cocked, alright? You're going to wait until I get there, then we'll go off fully cocked, got it?"

The words were like a life-line. "You're coming?"

" **Yes.** **Wait** until I get there, you got that?"

"Yes John," Sherlock said weakly, then rallied again, "John, I saw the CCTV footage. The woman who approached him looked an awful lot like..."

"It was," John sighed, "She's been dating Irene Adler. Turns out she's known her for years, she and Clara met her back when they were into the scene."

"What??"

"Small world, huh?"

Sherlock rubbed his forehead, "Now we know who's been blackmailing Mycroft."

"Yep, she was using me as leverage. I don't know if he knew that it was Harry, though." He sighed, "She's the last person I would have suspected. She doesn't seem smart enough, but she's been drunk for so long, nobody remembers what she was like before. But she _was_ clever."

" _You're_ clever, it's hardly a surprise."

"Sherlock, that's the nicest thing you've said to me all day." Sherlock couldn't help but chuckle at that. "Now I've got to go, my transport is here. I'll see you in a couple of hours."

The wait was agonising. Sherlock spent the whole time pacing and cuddling his teddy, trying to think, trying to plan. He watched and rewatched the video, trying to gain clues as to the location, but he just couldn't _think._ He'd expected they'd go after John. He hadn't expected them to target Mycroft. Mycroft's security network was exceptionally difficult to penetrate, but one face he didn't think not to trust, one woman claiming a shared concern for her brother, who was the nearest thing to a friend that Mycroft had, a brother that Mycroft had sworn to protect... He heard the helicopter and peered through the window, then stepped outside, keeping his teddy near. A couple of soldiers entirely in black, with red berets, were disembarking. "Who are you?" he demanded, "I don't recognise your regiment."

For some reason, they were beaming. "Our commanding officer will explain everything, Agent Sigerson," one said, saluting.

"Your commanding off--*" Sherlock broke off as another man stepped out of the helicopter. 

Dressed in black, wearing an officer's peaked cap and a dazzling smile, he walked up to Sherlock and saluted, "Captain John Watson, Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, by order of Her Majesty the Queen re-activated and attached to the Unified Intelligence Task Force for one mission, requesting the assistance of Interpol Special Agent Linus Sigerson, sir!"

Sherlock swayed, nearly overpowered by relief, **_"JOHN!"_** He recovered himself and added, "Happy to lend any assistance I can, Captain Watson."

"Good! Hop on, we've got a lot of intel to go through. Mr. Smith has a lock on Mycroft and has located his coordinates."

"Who's Mr. Smith?"

"The friend of a friend," John grinned.

"And you...! All this time, with your 'special unit,'" Sherlock mockingly mimed quotes around the word, to John's amusement, "You meant... you meant _UNIT!?_ " John beamed so innocently, Sherlock could imagine the halo. "Aaaarrgh!"

"And the best part is, you never figured it out! That's twice I've put one over on you!"

Sherlock stared at him and shook his head, "You're amazing, John. Just utterly amazing."

"I know," he grinned, "Now come on, we've got work to do. We need to have a plan in place before the troops get there."

* * * *

 _He brought my coat. He **brought** my **coat.** I can't believe he **brought my coat.**_ "Thanks for bringing my coat," Sherlock said as he shrugged into it. 

"No problem. It gets cold in a helicopter," John smiled back, completely disregarding the fact that Sherlock had been wearing an anorak.

"So it's a full-on assault, then," Sherlock glanced at John, who nodded. 

"We have the authorisation," he replied, "This isn't just terrorism, it's treason. We're to hit hard and fast - go in, retrieve the target, and get out."

"And you're certain this is where he is?" Sherlock asked, leaning over the tablet again. He stared at the map of the small office tower, committing it to memory, "How can you be sure?"

"Mr. Smith tracks by DNA. He's there, in that room. We just have to get to him. Mr. Smith says none of the doors are deadlock sealed, so we should be good."

"Mr. Smith seems remarkably well informed," Sherlock grumbled. 

"Quite well informed. He also informs that they also have quite a large number of cooling units in the building."

"I think you should send some people to find out why."

John grinned at him and radioed his troops, giving orders to search for and confiscate any computer equipment, to hold for surrender to Interpol. He looked out of the window. "Almost there." He reached out, grabbed an automatic assault rifle and handed it to Sherlock, "Know how to use this?"

Sherlock took it with a grim smirk, "Oh yes."

"And this?"

"Yes."

"How 'bout this?"

"I'm a fast learner?"

"Good, that'll make you even more dangerous with it. Got your teddy?"

"It's packing my revolver, John, of course I've got the teddy."

"Know where your towel is?"

"What?"

John shook his head and rolled his eyes, grinning, "Never mind." He watched as the copter touched down, then barked orders into his radio. "Let's go."

_Just like Baskerville, _Sherlock thought. Somehow they'd matched their strides, even their energies, united in purpose. "Feel good to be back in uniform?" he asked quietly.__

"Oh yeah," John breathed, "...Does it turn you on?"

Sherlock looked away, slightly pink, "Oh yeah." They looked at each other and broke up in giggles. 

They stormed through the broken doors of the office tower, following the path cleared by the red berets of the UNIT infantry. "She let them take my brother, John," Sherlock said softly, "What were they thinking?"

"They were thinking you'd fold. They don't know you as well as I do."

" **She** should know me better than that."

" **She** just wants to watch you being Sherlock, is my bet. Ultimately, these people, these activities, they're replaceable. If she just wants to watch you being you, she can find other ways to make you dance, as Moriarty put it." Sherlock's mouth pressed into a thin line. 

They came through the staircase door, guns blazing, but the henchmen were ready for them. John took down his special rifle and fired, taking out three thugs with one slug. Sherlock's impassive face barely twitched. He seemed more blank than ever, but the devastation left by his guns spoke of the fury driving them. Blood covered the walls. "Don't slip," John murmured. He checked his tablet. "Looks like they've tried to move but my people have cut off all of the exits. They're trapped."

"You know who we're likely to find in there," Sherlock said quietly as they reached the door of the suite where the room was.

John nodded once, "I know." He examined the electronic lock and took something out of his pocket.

"...Lipstick, John?"

"On loan from Miss Smith. I'd better survive this because I have to return it." Sherlock winced at the barely-audible-to-most-people whine the thing made, then the door was open and they were through. They stormed the halls, looking for the right room. When they found it, they exchanged a glance. John checked his tablet again and showed Sherlock the number of signatures in the room, "Vatican cameos?" Sherlock nodded. Then John made the whiney-lipstick thing do its magic, and kicked the door in. 

Silence. And when Sherlock spiralled up, he intercepted Irene's arm and yanked her off balance, crushing the nerve in her wrist to make her drop the syringe then whirling her to the floor. "Not this time, Miss Adler."

"Drop your weapons, Mr. Holmes," said a new voice, "And let her up. Slowly. Or I blow out what's left of your big brother's brain."

Sherlock slowly got to his feet, "Harriet Watson. So you're the one who's been calling the shots."

"Surprised?"

"Very."

"Drop the weapons, Mr. Holmes. All of them." She pressed her gun meaningfully against Mycroft's head. Mycroft didn't move. 

Sherlock's eyes didn't leave him as he set his rifles down. "Why do it?"

Harriet smiled up at the ceiling, "Would you believe, I did it.. for Johnny!"

"That's a quote from _The Homecoming Queen's Got A Gun_ referencing the 1983 movie _The Outsiders._ "

"You really do take all the fun out of everything, don't you," Harry said sourly, "It also happens to be the truth."

"You used him to blackmail my brother. You think he'd be _happy_ about this?"

"Of course!" Harry beamed, "The poor man was so despondent when he was invalided out of the army, then you died and he lost his life of solving crimes and the poor thing just spiralled into despair. But now...! - well you saw him yourself. You saw how happy he was to be re-activated. Come on in, Johnny!" John entered slowly, hands behind his head, the muzzle of a thug's rifle nestled at the nape of his neck. "Awww, look at him! - Doesn't he look dashing in his uniform? The things we do for our big brothers, eh, Mr. Holmes?"

"I really didn't want it to come to this," Irene said as she approached, "You really should have taken my offer, Sherlock. And you still can. You call these people off, we'll see that your brother gets medical attention, and I'll help you, keep that wonderful mind of yours active."

"Irene..." Harry called worriedly. 

"It's alright," Irene smiled, "He won't hurt me. He can't hurt me." 

Sherlock sagged and looked away, meeting John's eyes. Then he shook his head and dropped his gaze to the floor. "No," he whispered, "I couldn't hurt you." Irene smiled and laid her hand on his arm, coming close. Her lips touched his in a lingering kiss, then she pulled back and smiled at him. "...But then you hurt my brother."

_***BLAM!*** _

As Harry screamed, he spun around, letting the woman fall, whirling the smoking teddy bear into the thug holding John, while John's hands reached back to seize the rifle then brought it around, smacking Harry with the stock, then drew his pistol and fired. She went down, shrieking and clutching her shoulder. "You shot me," she sobbed, "You shot your own sister!"

"No," John said calmly, "I shot a traitor to the British empire and to the Watson family." He pulled out his radio and called for medical assistance, then went to check Irene. 

"Mycroft? Mycroft, can you hear me? It's Sherlock! Mycroft, can you hear me?" Sherlock moved aside as John approached. "He's breathing but it's erratic and so is his pulse and he's not responding to any stimulus."

"Keep talking to him," John instructed, "Keep trying to reach him. Take this, put pressure on those wounds." He was pure military doctor now, in his element. On some level, Sherlock could appreciate the privilege of witnessing the beauty and precision of John's work, but those levels were crushed under the weight of anxiety. 

The medics arrived and John gave his orders in the same calm, controlled voice he'd used at Baskerville. Harry was patched up and taken out, then Mycroft, Sherlock at his side. He was peripherally aware of John stopping to talk to one of the lieutenants, ordering her to clear the area, then startled when he felt John touch his wrist. "Agent Sigerson? Come on - we're not finished yet."

"John, my brother..."

"Is hurt because of these people. My people have retrieved all of the servers and found shipments of drugs and weapons all through the building. Want to finish this?" The look in Sherlock's eyes gave him the answer. "Feeling angry?"

"What the hell do you think??"

"I think," John held up the explosive devices his lieutenant had delivered, "I should let it out, if I were you."

* * * *

It had taken many hours of surgery just to get Mycroft stabilised. Now Sherlock sat next to his bed, pale from more than just exhaustion, watching his own blood drip into his brother's veins. John and the neuro-surgeon were talking in quiet voices. Sherlock knew what they were saying. Cerebral oedema, haemorrhage, blunt force trauma... he knew what it meant. He knew what the MRI and CT scans were saying. Finally John came over to sit next to his friend. 

"You killed her?" he asked quietly. 

"Had to," Sherlock replied, "She'd have escaped if I hadn't. You said it yourself, she'd just find another way. She'd have disappeared again, lain low for a while, then found a way to make me 'dance' some more. I'm tired of people treating me like a damned puppet." John nodded and put his arm around Sherlock's shoulders. "Besides, I could never forgive her for making me shoot my teddy." Sherlock took the torn bear out and gazed at it mournfully, "Poor John. Shot through the shoulder, look at that."

"We can patch him up. 'Course, then he'll have to be invalided out of service."

"He can live behind the headboard. He can be Sherlock's lifelong companion."

"And Sherlock can be his significant otter," John agreed. They looked at each other and smiled, then the smiles faded. "Yeah, I suppose we should talk about that," John sighed. 

"What is there to say that hasn't already been said?"

John looked at their rings, matching simple gold bands. "Yeah. I suppose you're right. It's all done but the paperwork." He leaned over and kissed Sherlock and pet his hair. 

Sherlock reached out and took the hand of the pallid figure on the bed. "He's not coming back, is he," he whispered. 

John knew better than to dissemble. "It doesn't look good."

"He told me about the first attack. You never fail to amaze me. And this..."

"Yeah, Mycroft made it happen but try to stop me. They didn't just push your berserk button, they pushed mine as well. I mean, yes he's an untrustworthy, shifty, Orwellian bully and the magnificent bastard's magnificent bastard, but he's also my damned brother-in-law."

Sherlock looked at him, "You shot your sister."

"In the shoulder, not fatally, and I'll see her stand trial for her crimes. **She's** not likely to escape. So?"

Sherlock nodded. "What was that fancy gun you used?"

"Ever played _Quake_? No? Well, it's similar to the rail gun but different operating principle. They're very useful when you need to clear an area in a hurry. UNIT uses them for certain types of covert operations, they're not common knowledge."

Sherlock snorted, "Think they might have anything that can fix my brother?" He reached up to stroke Mycroft's pale cheek. "He's not coming back. What will I do without my big brother?" He started to shake, struggling to hold back the tears that fell anyway.

John pulled him close, "Let it out."

Sherlock shook his head. "It's stupid," he said, through the tears, "It gives me a headache, plugs my nose and it doesn't make anything better."

But John was thinking. "I'll be right back," he said, standing and kissing Sherlock's cheek, "I'm going to go make a phone call."


	7. Morning Glory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft wakes up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue to follow

It was a damp and cloudy twilight. Mycroft groaned and passed his hand over his eyes, blinking awake and immediately wishing he could go back to sleep again. He felt like hell. He took his hand away and looked around to see his little brother perched on the chair beside him, a blanket wrapped tightly around his shoulders, one foot jiggling, eyes watching him anxiously. "What time is it?" he asked, his voice sounding raspy and odd. 

"It's a little before five a.m," Sherlock replied. 

"Don't see why I should feel so miserable," Mycroft sighed, letting his head fall back to the pillow, "That's practically sleeping in." He looked at Sherlock, "Why am I here?"

"What do you remember?"

"What kind of a question is that?"

"One that needs an answer."

Mycroft snarled and shook his head, closing his eyes as he cast his mind back to.... back to...... His eyes snapped open, staring at the ceiling in horror. Back to... what?

"Mycroft?"

"I... _don't_ remember....!" A wave of panic seized him. This didn't happen!

Sherlock launched out of the chair and onto the side of the bed, gripping his brother's hand, "Mycroft, **what** do you remember? Do you remember being their prisoner?"

"I.... I..." Nothing. Nothing. No images, no scents, no feelings. "...No."

"Do you remember **who** took you prisoner, who tricked you?"

Nothing. Nothing. ...Nothing. "No." Another wave of panic and despair broke over him and he gripped his brother's hand in both his own, "Sherlock...!" _This didn't happen!_ This _never_ happened to him, he had always remembered _everything_ with perfect clarity!

"Steady, steady... Do you remember who discredited and killed me?"

"I...." An image finally flashed. "James Moriarty, yes."

"Who helped me fake my death?"

Flash. "Molly Hooper, the mortician."

"Who do I live with?"

Flash. "John Hamish Watson, retired army doctor, captain with the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers."

"What colour tie were you wearing at your senior prom?"

Flash, and a snarl of annoyance, "Was that a trick question? I wasn't wearing a tie. I didn't go to my senior prom."

"What did you have for breakfast on the morning you graduated from university?"

"Toast and tea."

More questions, more panic attacks with each failed answer, but the further back into the past the questions reached, the fewer the gaps. Finally, "What happened that night when you were six?"

Mycroft glared at him coldly, "Oh you _would_ ask me to remember that."

"Actually it's the one I was hoping would be a gap," Sherlock shrugged.

"What?"

"Well it's obviously haunted you for life. You used to say you envied my ability to delete things from my memory; I know that's the one you were thinking of whenever you said it. But by your reaction, I deduce you remember it quite well."

Mycroft lay back and closed his eyes. "Actually, it's ... rather fuzzy," he said presently, "It's there, enough to know that it happened. Not clear, like my memories usually are." He opened his eyes again, "How long have you known?"

"Hnh, years. Worked it out from eavesdropping on the grands and a few of Mummy's cryptic comments," Sherlock shrugged again. "Your long-term memory appears to be intact. I suspect it's rebuilding from the long term to the more recent ones. You were drugged when they kidnapped you, so I suspect you won't ever remember that, because those memories were never written in the first place."

Mycroft sighed and nodded, then scowled and flexed his arm, "And this IV hurts like blazes."

"It's probably ready to come out, then." Sherlock reached for it, peeled the tape back and sure enough, the site was glowing gold. He slid the needle out and the small wound sparkled gold for a few seconds then closed, leaving no trace. 

Mycroft stared. "What the heck??" He grabbed the needle from Sherlock and scraped it down his forearm. The resulting gash scintillated gold around the edges then closed without a mark. "What's happening??" He stared up at his little brother... who was wearing that too-innocent look he got when he was guilty of something. "Sherlock? - What did you do to me??"

"Nothing! ...Harmful. Well, we miiiight have... snuck into a UNIT lab and..... borrowed some top-secret highly experimental medical nanobots developed from an alien technology that appeared during World War 2..."

"'Highly experimental??'"

"The alien nanobots were military in nature and repaired soldiers for return to the battlefield and primed them to obey their commander and the experimental ones are trying to strip that out so we're not really sure what side effects they'll have but really the hard part was convincing them you _are_ the commander and they used me as the template because we share the same genetic model so we're not entirely sure what that'll do because I _can_ delete from memory and we're not quite sure if they understood that you're--*"

" _Sherlock!!"_ Mycroft wailed, "You used **me** to test _experimental nanobots???_ And you don't even know the possible side effects??"

"It was **important,** Mycroft!!"

Mycroft stared at the naked anguish on Sherlock's face. "....How badly was I injured?" Sherlock said nothing but handed over the tablet. Mycroft paged through the scans of his brain and his brow creased. "...Am I reading these correctly? I shouldn't be talking. I shouldn't even have woken up."

"They didn't want to kill you," Sherlock said in a low voice, "The people who engaged Adler's services just wanted to destroy you, and everything that you could use against them. Killing you wasn't necessary and would have brought more complications. And of course, she had her own reasons for wanting to ensure that you couldn't remember her."

"The severity of these brain injuries..." Mycroft trailed off. He stared at the live EEG traces and scrolled back to see when the minimal-activity lines had ended, "But this was only..." He sat back, shaking. They'd brought him back from a borderline vegetative state to almost full recovery in that short of time? "I see. Well. Perhaps I can live with a few... bad sectors."

"You've recovered a lot already. More than I anticipated. It may be a matter of .. exercising your mind, giving the nanobots the right idea."

"Very good. I shall do that. And... does this continue to happen?" he indicated the healed scratches.

Sherlock shook his head and held up a vial, "When they've finished their work, they'll return. Then we'll sneak into the lab again and put them back. Borrowed, see?"

Mycroft rolled his eyes and shook his head but smiled his thin, faint smile. "And where is the good doctor?"

"In the lounge, getting some kip, as he calls it."

"And are your missions complete?"

"Almost. We seized almost a hundred servers, the size of the centre was massive. It'll take a few more months to crack them all, even with me and my American associates helping. But once they're open, it should be finished."

"And... What do you want to do then?"

Sherlock sighed and passed his hand down his face. "I want to go home," he admitted. 

Mycroft nodded slowly, then he closed his eyes and sank back into the pillow. After a few minutes, he said, "I want to see it."

"Hm?"

"The Black Beauty _T. rex._ And that pliesiosaur you panned down. And the dioramas. I want to see it, in person. And I don't care how much we argue." He opened his eyes and smiled at Sherlock, who squeezed his hand and smiled back.


	8. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock Holmes returns but he has some unfinished business.

The rain beat down, drumming against the windows of their inn room. He lay on his side, spooned around John, one arm wrapped around his waist. Their fingers slid along one another's, tangling together. It was still and, apart from the rain, silent.

It was their last night together. In the morning, Sherlock would take plane to America, to begin the last phase of unravelling Moriarty's work. And John would take Mycroft back to London. _"The good news is, he's still Mycroft,"_ John had said in a serious tone. He'd watched the guarded apprehension build in Sherlock's eyes before adding, _"The bad news is... he's still Mycroft."_ Then they'd had a laugh, and reached for each other. 

He slipped his fingertips along John's nailbeds. Roughness of a developing hangnail. A fresh scalpel cut, closed. The dip and swell of a knuckle. John stirred and shifted to look slightly over his shoulder, "You want I should return the favour?"

Sherlock breathed in the scent of John's hair, tracing his thumb along the swell of a vein across the back of John's hand. "What makes you think you're not?" he asked in a voice so low and soft it was barely audible. 

John shifted to his back, "Well, if..."

"If the point of the exercise is to feel intimate pleasure and a sense of connection, you're doing an admirable job."

John fell quiet. He watched the play of their hands tangling, tracing, and stroking. Then he watched Sherlock's face, slightly pink in cheeks and lips, with a tiny tiny smile of blissful contentment. A flush of warm happiness spread through John at the thought that he had put it there. He said nothing more, for what could one say after that? Instead, he snuggled down against his friend - best friend, partner, lover - and allowed himself to fall asleep, with his own blissful little smile. 

Sherlock watched him sleep for a while, then reached carefully for his pack and found his media player. He'd been so frantic about Mycroft, he'd completely missed that John had answered his Bonnie Tyler cry for help, with the Payolas' _Soldier._ And hadn't he been magnificent? Hadn't Sherlock sat in dumbfounded astonishment, seeing the _real_ Doctor John Watson, the man's true self, so completely competant and in control, knowing exactly what to do and doing it with the complete assurance that it would be the right thing to do. He'd even managed to keep Sherlock from flying apart, giving him tasks, involving him in his brother's care, even cowing him into eating ( _"If you're going to use yourself as a one-man blood bank, you've got to have blood to give and for that you need to replenish! Now sit down, shut up, and eat your damned tea!"_ ) He could feel nothing but admiration for the man. Briefly, he wondered if that was how John felt about him, whenever Sherlock had cracked a case or deduced something seemingly obscure. _And then they invalided you out of the service and took everything that you were away from you,_ Sherlock thought, watching John's dreams scuttle beneath his closed eyelids, and his heart ached in sympathy because he knew how that one felt. 

He heard John sigh in his sleep and thought about what to choose. He had to search a bit but finally selected Bette Midler's _The Wind Beneath My Wings_ and uploaded it for John. _Just a few more months, John,_ he thought, _Then I can come home._

* * * *

Another long and boring flight - the last one. He passed the time listening to the songs accumulated on his media player, listening to the tapestry of emotion they'd woven. It was just finishing _Rock'n'Roll Dreams Come True_ by Meatloaf, John's answer to _The Wind Beneath My Wings._ Blue Oyster Cult and 54-40, Peter Schilling and Oingo Boingo, Meco, Coldplay... When he got off the plane, he found the Pukka Orchestra's cover of _Listen to the Radio_ had been uploaded to answer his Smashing Pumpkins. The plane had caught the jetstream and arrived early, but he had things to do, first.

There was a black car waiting outside the airport. He didn't even hesitate. "Welcome home," Mycroft said. 

"You're looking better."

"Fully recovered. The good doctor believes I was kept drugged the entire time, hence the complete lack of any memory of the incident. I did insist that he show me the CCTV footage your team recovered from the servers, in the hopes of prompting a recollection but he refused. Well - he did show me one bit. I must say, that was quite a novel use for a teddy bear."

"It was caught on camera?"

"Doctor Watson has made several animated gifs of you coshing that fellow with it, complete with terrible puns as captions. I believe his favorite is 'Loaded for Bear,'" Mycroft chuckled, then grew more serious, "There _were_ some side effects from your experimental treatment, primarily an unaccustomed sense of aggression, not unexpected given the original purpose of the prototype. I chose to channel it into the economy." Mycroft smiled thinly then handed over a sealed packet. 

He opened them to find passport, driver's license, identification, banking... He couldn't suppress the sigh of relief - he was Sherlock Holmes again. "Thanks."

Mycroft merely tipped his head in acknowledgement. The tension between them had thawed somewhat but would likely never truly be resolved. "Baker Street?"

"Barts first, if you don't mind. There's someone I need to talk to."

It was disturbingly easy to sneak up on his target, who was intently focussed on preparing the cadaver and didn't even look up as he entered the morgue. He waited until the scent of the roses penetrated the smell of formaldehyde and finally caught her attention. "Hello, Molly."

"Sherlock!!" She jumped up and ran over to hug him, stopped abruptly, shucked off her apron and gloves, then flung her arms around him. "I saw the news. Are you back for real?"

"I am," he told her. He picked up the roses and offered them to her - yellow roses, one for each year he'd been dead - with a kiss on the cheek. "I could not have pulled this off without you, Molly."

She smiled warmly then her smile faded somewhat. "Does John know? Doctor Watson, I mean?"

"Yes."

She nodded, "He'll be glad to see you, then. His wife just passed away."

"Then I should get on, then."

She nodded and chewed her lip for a moment, "Sherlock? ... Will you be coming 'round again? For your experiments, I mean?"

"That would depend on several factors, not the least of which being whether I'd even be allowed back on the grounds."

"But... if you were? If I could... persuade them to let you?"

He paused at the door and looked back at her, then grinned, "Count on it!"

He took a cab back to Baker Street. The lock was a little stiffer than it had been and the air inside smelled different. He mounted the stairs, listening to each familiar creak, then opened the door to 221b. 

His bullet-pocked smiley was still there. His skull stood on the mantle; next to it was his singing bowl, with its vulture feather tucked inside. The flat smelled different. Cleaner, for one, and lacking in the unusual aromas generated by his many experiments. The faint smell of unfamiliar perfume still lingered, but there were familiar aromas as well - especially the woodsy aftershave, lanolin, sanitiser and mansweat aromas he associated the most with John. 

His violin case sat on his chair, waiting for him. There was a note tacked onto it. 

_If you get home before I do, there's coffee set up in the maker, ready to go, just push the start button. It's on the front and marked "Start." Yes I do think you're that helpless sometimes. -- John._

He smirked and went into the kitchen to press the Start button. His favorite cup had been set out. Then he went into his bedroom. He knew that John had taken it over but he wasn't quite prepared for the signs of dual occupancy - John had kept pretty much everything Sherlock had had in the way of bedding and decoration (not much of that, but his periodic table still hung on the wall.) His eyes fell on the stuffed otter tucked behind the headboard, wearing a scarf. He set his pack down and drew out his teddy bear. It was now misshapen, though it had been stuffed and stitched by hands that had worked on it as carefully as though it had been his own flesh; its original t-shirt had been destroyed but he'd found a tiny oatmeal wooly jumper for it. He tucked the bear next to the otter with an amused smile. _A pity they don't make mongoose plushies,_ he thought, _It'd be much more appropriate._

The violin sang in his hands as he gazed out of the window. And when he saw the familiar figure walking in that familiar way, it sang the _Ode to Joy._

* * * * 

_Take my hand  
And run  
Run through the snow  
Blood on the snow  
Red as apples  
"Are you alright" the pale face asks "You did just shoot me."  
The swirling snow  
"Yes well.. True. But you weren't a very nice person"  
Hair dark as night, lips red as blood, skin white as snow  
"I loved you" the pale face whispers  
Sweet as apples  
"All that you are"  
Hunter, cut out his heart and bring it to me in this box  
"You lost me when you touched my family  
You touched my brother  
You nearly cost his job  
You nearly cost his life"  
Blood on the snow  
Sherlock  
Irene  
Good night Irene  
"Did you think I would forgive"  
Take my hand  
And run  
Throw the poisoned apple away  
Snow swirling  
Covering the face in the snow  
Run  
"Run, Sherlock  
Take my hand and run"  
Mummy wait for me  
Mummy why are we running  
Hounds Sherlock  
Now hounds are hunting  
There is blood on the snow  
Mummy  
We must run faster from the hounds  
"Not from Sherlock  
To  
The hounds will chew you up and strip you of your layers and spit you out and you will not be the same"  
Running through the snow  
Mother  
Running  
Turning throwing the golden apple in her hands  
"chase it Sherlock  
Take what I could not have"  
Take my hand  
And run  
Tumbling to the snow  
Hair dark as night, hair fair as light  
Golden as apples  
"Now people are definitely going to talk"  
Run  
Keep running Mummy  
I cannot run anymore  
The hounds have caught me  
"You know" sunshine hair and soulful eyes  
He wears a cuddly jumper  
And takes a bite from the golden apple  
So casually  
As if it were not an extraordinary thing to do  
"If we're going to do this we need to co-ordinate"  
Blood on the snow  
Where the hounds have bitten through my skin  
Torn away my shields  
And left me feeling  
"Trust me"   
He smiles like the sun  
With lips sweet with the juice of apples  
"I'm a doctor"  
Take my hand  
John_

He swam through the fuzzy cotton of sleep towards waking. The sensation of fingers linked through his still lingered, as did the sensation of a warm body pressed against his own, though the space beside him was cooling. 

Smells of bacon and egg and coffee and the stale, musty smells of old wallpaper in an old house. Sounds of sizzling food, clinking china, floorboards creaking under feet, the distant sounds of Mrs. Hudson's morning telly. Pale light filtering through the curtains. A voice - rich, warm, sunny - informing someone that he wouldn't be in to work today. He reached for his phone. 

[07:13 SH] Get in here.

[07:14 John Watson] Are we really doing this? Silly me, of course we are. Why come out and talk to me when you can text? I'm making breakfast.

[07:16 SH] I need coffee.

[07:17 John Watson] Come out and get some then.

[07:18 SH] I know you phoned in and you're not going anywhere today. You have no excuses. Get back in here.  
[07:18 SH] Bring coffee with you.  
[07:19 SH] Bring breakfast with you too.

[07:21 John Watson] If you'd just be Mr. Patient for once, you'd have found that breakfast in bed was my intention all along.

A few minutes later, John arrived with the coffee. Sherlock slung his arms around him and tried to drag him back to bed, and took considerable persuasion to let John go back for the plates of breakfast. "You're daft," he told Sherlock fondly as he crawled back under the covers, "Didn't you get enough cuddles last night?"

"No."

"Neither did I, c'mere."

"I'm addicted," Sherlock declared. 

John giggled, "Careful. You get too much, you might take an overdose."

"Hmm. I wonder if that's even possible? New experiment, find out if it's possible to OD on cuddling."

"I might have to volunteer for that one."

"I was hoping you would." He sipped his coffee and nestled his cheek against John's hair, then sighed with a mix of contentment and relief.

_My name is Sherlock Holmes. I live at 221b Baker Street. My partner is Doctor John Hamish Watson._

_It's over. I'm home._

**Author's Note:**

> back in my day, an "8-ball" referred to an eighth of an ounce, or 3.5 grams, of cocaine.


End file.
